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Copyright _ TW 

COWRIGIIT DEl>OSm 




























































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































. 








They had a merry time getting the Whatnot 

Shop ready. 


—Page 85 




















NANCY BRANDON: 
ENTHUSIAST 


BY 

LILIAN GARIS 


ILLUSTRATED BY 
THELMA GOOCH 


1924 

MILTON BRADLEY COMPANY 

SPRINGFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS 







Copyright, 192/f. 

By MILTON BRADLEY COMPANY 
Springfield, Massachusetts 
All Rights Reserved 


Bradley Quality Books 

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 


.o'UN -7 1924 

©C1A793543 






CONTENTS 


CHAPTM PAQB 

I. The Girl and the Boy .... 1 

II. Dinner Difficulties . . . . 20 

III. Belated Haste ....... 35 

IV. New Friends . . . . . .43 

V. Original Plans.54 

VI. Fair Play.67 

VII. The Special Sale.83 

VIII. Fish Hooks and Floaters ... 97 

IX. The Big Day.110 

X. Still They Came.121 

XI. The Failure.130 

XII. The Virtue of Resolve . . . 140 

XIII. Behind the Cloud.155 

XIV. A Pleasant Surprise .... 165 

XV. Talking it Over.176 

XVI. Just Fishing.184 

XVII. The Cave-in.196 

XVIII. Introducing Nero.205 














CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 


XIX. 

A Discovery .... .. . 

. 217 

XX. 

The Midnight Alarm . . 

. 229 

XXI. 

For Value Deceived . 

. 242 

XXII. 

Tarts and Lady Fingers . . 

. 253 

XXIII. 

The Story Told .... 

. 264 




NANCY BRANDON: 
ENTHUSIAST 

CHAPTERI 

THE GIRL AND THE BOY 

The small kitchen was untidy. There 
were boxes empty and some crammed with 
loose papers, while a big clothes basket was 
filled—with a small boy, who took turns roll¬ 
ing it like a boat and bumping it up and 
down like a flivver. Ted Brandon was 
about eleven years old, full of boyhood’s im¬ 
portance and bristling with boyhood’s 
pranks. 

His sister Nancy, who stood placidly re¬ 
viewing the confusion, was, she claimed, in 
her teens. She was also just now in her 
glory, for after many vicissitudes and un¬ 
certainties they were actually moved into 

the old Townsend place at Long Leigh. 

1 


2 


NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


“You’re perfectly silly, Ted. You know 
it’s simply a wonderful idea,” she pro¬ 
claimed loftily. 

“Do I.” There was no question in the 
boy’s tone. 

“Well, you ought to. But, of course, 
boys—” 

‘ 6 Oh, there you go. Boys!! ” No mistak¬ 
ing this tone. 

“Ted Brandon, you ought to be ashamed 
of yourself. To be so—so mean to mother. ’ ’ 

“Mean to mother! Who said anything 
about mother?” 

“This is mother’s pet scheme.” 

“Pretty queer scheme to keep us cooped 
up all vacation.” He rocked the basket 
vigorously. 

“We won’t have to stay in much at all. 
Why, just odd times, and besides—” Nancy 
paused to pat her hair. She might have 
patted it without pausing but her small 
brother Ted would then have been less im¬ 
pressed by her assumed dignity, “you see, 
Teddy, I’m working for a principle. I 


THE GIRL AND THE BOY 


3 


don’t believe that girls should do a bit more 
housework than boys.” 

“Oh, I know you believe that all-righty.” 
Ted allowed himself to sigh but did not 
pause to do so. He kept right on rocking 
and snapping the blade of his pen-knife 
open and shut, as if the snap meant some¬ 
thing either useful or amusing. 

“Well, I guess I know what I’m talking 
about,” declared Nancy, “and now, even 
mother has come around to agree with me. 
She’s going right on with her office work 
and you and I are to run this lovely little 
shop.” 

“You mean you are to run the shop and 
I’ll wash the dishes.” Deepest scorn and 
seething irony hissed through Teddy’s 
words. He even flipped the pen-knife into 
the sink board and nicked, but did not break, 
the apple-sauce dish. 

“Of course you must do your part.” 
Nancy lifted up two dishes and set them 
down again. 

“And yours, if you have your say. Oh, 


4 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 

what’s the use of talkin’ to girls?” Ted 
tumbled out of the basket, pushed it over 
until it banged into a soap box, then 
straightening up his firm young shoulders, 
he prepared to leave the scene. 

“There’s no use talking to girls, Ted,” 
replied his sister, “if you don’t talk sense.” 

“Sense!” He jammed his cap upon his 
head although he didn’t have any idea of 
wearing it on this beautiful day. The fact 
was, Teddy and Nancy were disagreeing. 
But there really wasn’t anything unusual 
about that, for their natures were different, 
they saw things differently, and if they had 
been polite enough to agree they would 
simply have been fooling each other. 

Nancy smiled lovingly, however, at the 
boy, as he banged the door. What a darling 
Ted was! So honest and so scrappy! Of 
all things hateful to Nancy Brandon a 
“sissy” boy, as she described a certain type, 
was the worst. 

“But I suppose,” she ruminated serenely, 
“the old breakfast dishes have got to be 


THE GIRL AND THE BOY 


5 


done.” Another lifting up and setting 
down of a couple of china pieces, but further 
than that Nancy made not the slightest 
headway. A small mirror, hung in a small 
hall between the long kitchen and the store. 
Here Nancy betook herself and proceeded 
again to pat her dark hair. 

She was the type of girl described as wil¬ 
lowy, because that word is prettier than 
some others that might mean tall, lanky, 
boneless and agile. Nancy had black hair 
that shone with crow-black luster in spite of 
its pronounced curl. Her eyes were dark, 
snappy and meaningful. They could mean 
love, as when Ted slammed the door, or they 
could mean danger, as when a boy kicked the 
black and white kitten. Then again they 
could mean devotion, as when Nancy beheld 
her idolized little mother who was a business 
woman as well, and in that capacity, 
Nancy’s model. 

A tingle at the bell that was set for the 
store alarm, sent the girl dancing away from 
the looking-glass. 


6 


NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


“Funniest thing about a store,” she told 
herself, “there’s always someone to buy 
things you haven’t got.” 

The catch was on the screen door and, as 
Nancy approached it, she discerned outside, 
the figure of an elderly woman. It was 
Miss Sarah Townsend from whom her 
mother had bought the store. 

“Oh, good morning, Miss Townsend. I 
keep the door fastened when I’m alone, as 
I might be busy in the kitchen,” apologized 
Nancy. 

“That’s right, dear, that’s right. And I 
wouldn’t be too much alone if I were you,” 
cautioned the woman who was stepping in 
with the air of proprietorship, and with her 
little brown dog sniffing at her heels. 
“Don’t you keep your brother with you?” 

“Ted? Oh yes, sometimes. But he’s a 
little boy, you know, Miss Townsend, and 
he must enjoy his vacation.” Nancy was 
making friends with Tiny, the dog, but after 
a polite sniff or two Tiny was off frisking 
about happily, as any dog might be expected 


THE GIRL AND THE BOY 


7 


to do when returning to his old-time home. 

Miss Townsend surveyed Nancy critically. 

4 ‘Of course your brother is a little boy,” 
she said, “but what about you? You’re 
only a little girl.” 

“Little! Why I’m much stronger than 
Ted, and years older,” declared Nancy, 
pulling herself up to her fullest height. 

The woman smiled tolerantly. She wore 
glasses so securely fixed before her deep-set 
eyes that they seemed like a very feature of 
her face. She was a capable looking, eld¬ 
erly woman, and rather comely, but she 
was, as Nancy had quickly observed, “hope¬ 
lessly old-fashioned.” 

“We haven’t anything fixed up yet,” said 
Nancy apologetically. “You see, mother 
goes to business and that leaves the store 
and the house to me.” 

“Yes. She explained in taking our place 
that she was doing it to give you a chance to 
try business. But for a girl so young— 
Come back here, Tiny,” she ordered the 
sniffing, snuffing, frisky little dog. 


8 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 

“If I’m going to be a business woman 
I’ve got to start in,” interrupted Nancy. 
“They say it’s never too early to start at 
housework ” 

“But that’s different. Every girl has to 
know how to keep house,” insisted Miss 
Townsend. She was busy straightening a 
box of spools that lay upon the little 
counter, but from her automatic actions it 
was perfectly evident that Miss Townsend 
didn’t know she was doing anything. 

“I can’t see why,” retorted Nancy. 
“Just look at mother. What would she 
have done with us if she hadn’t understood 
business^” 

Miss Townsend sighed. “Being a widow, 
my dear—” 

“But I may be a widow too,” breezed 
Nancy. “In fact I’m sure to, for everyone 
says I’m so much like mother. Do let me 
fix that box of spools, Miss Townsend. 
Someone came in for linen thread last night 
and Teddy looked for it. I’m sure he gave 
them a ball of cord, for all the cord was 


THE GIRL AND THE BOY 


9 


scattered around too.” She put the cover 
on the thread box. “Boys are rather poor 
at business, I think, especially boys of 
Teddy’s age,” orated the important Nancy. 

Miss Townsend agreed without saying so. 
She was looking over the little place in a 
fidgety, nervous way. Nancy quickly de¬ 
cided this was due to regret that she had 
given the place up, and therefore sought to 
make her feel at ease. 

The little brown dog had curled himself 
up in front of the fireplace on a piece of rug, 
evidently his own personal property. The 
fireplace was closed up and the stove set 
back against it, out of the way for summer, 
and handy-by for winter. 

Nancy smiled at the woman who was mov¬ 
ing about in a sort of aimless restlessness. 

“It must seem natural to you to be around 
here,” Nancy ventured. 

“Yes, after thirty years—” 

“Thirty years!” repeated Nancy, incred¬ 
ulously. “Did you and your brother live 
here all that time?” j 


10 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


“Yes.” A prolonged sigh brought Miss 
Townsend down on the old hickory chair 
that stood by the door, just out of the way 
of possible customers. 

“Brother Elmer and I kept on here after 
mother died. In fact, so far as I was con¬ 
cerned, we might have gone on until we died, 
but there was a little trouble—” 

“Just like me and my brother, I sup¬ 
pose,” intervened Nancy, kindly. “We 
love each other to death, and yet we are 
always scrapping.” 

“In children’s way, but that’s different, 
very different,” insisted Miss Townsend. 
“With me and Elmer,” she sighed again, 
“it became a very, very serious matter.” 

“Oh,” faltered Nancy. Things were be¬ 
coming uncomfortable. That kitchen work 
would be growing more formidable, and 
Nancy had really wanted to settle the store. 
She would love to do that, to put all the 
little things in their places, or in new places, 
as she would surely find a new method for 


THE GIRL AND THE BOY 11 

their arrangement. She hurried over to 
the corner shelves. 

“I hope no one comes in until I get the 
place fixed up,” she remarked. “Mother 
doesn’t intend to buy much new stock until 
she sees how we get along.” 

“That’s wise,” remarked Miss Townsend. 
“I suppose I know every stick in the place,” 
she looked about critically, “and yet I could 
be just as interested. I wonder if you 
wouldn’t like me to help you fix things up? 
I’d just love to do it.” 

Now this was exactly what Nancy did 
not want. In fact, she was wishing 
earnestly that the prim Miss Townsend 
would take herself off and leave her to do as 
she pleased. 

“That’s kind of you, I’m sure,” she said, 
“but the idea was that I should be manager 
from the start,” Nancy laughed lightly to 
justify this claim, “and I’m sure mother 
would be better pleased if I put the shop in 
order. You can come in and see me again 


12 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 

when I’m all fixed up, ” (this gentle hint was 
tactful, thought Nancy) “and then you can 
tell me what you think of me as the manager 
of the Whatnot Shop.” 

Miss Townsend was actually poking in the 
corner near the hearth shelf where matches, 
in a tin container, were kept. She heard 
Nancy but did not heed her. 

“Looking for something?” the girl asked 
a little sharply. 

“Looking?” Yes, that is—Tiny keep 
down there,” she ordered. “I can’t see 
what has got into that dog of late. It was 
one of the things that Elmer and I were 
constantly fussing over. Tiny won’t let 
any one touch things near this chimney 
without barking his head off. Now just 
watch.” 

As she went to the shelf back of the stove 
the dog sprang alongside of her. He barked 
in the happy fashion that goes with rapid 
tail wagging, and Nancy quickly decided 
that the dog knew a secret of the old 
chimney. 



Miss Townsend pretended to take things out of 

the stove. 


















THE GIRL AND THE BOY 13 

Again Miss Townsend pretended to take 
things out of the stove, and Tiny all but 
jumped into the low, broad door. 

“Now, isn’t that—uncanny?” asked the 
woman, plainly bewildered. 

“Oh, no, I don’t think so,” said Nancy. 
“All dogs have queer little tricks like 
that.” 

44 Do they ? I’m glad to hear you say so,’’ 
sighed Miss Townsend, once more picking 
up a small box of notions. “You must ex¬ 
cuse me, my dear. You see the habit of a 
life time—” 

“Oh, that’s all right, Miss Townsend, I 
didn’t mean to hurry you,” spoke up Nancy. 
“But the morning goes so quickly, and 
mother may come home to lunch.” This 
possibility brought real anxiety to Nancy. 
If she had only slicked up the kitchen in¬ 
stead of arguing with Teddy. After all the 
plagued old housework did take some time, 
she secretly admitted. 

But Miss Townsend laid down the unfin¬ 
ished roll of lace edging, although she had 


14 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


most carefully rolled all but a very small 
end, walked over to Nancy, who was just 
attempting to dust out a tray, and in the 
most tragic voice said: 

“ Nancy, I think you really have a lot of 
sense.” 

Nancy chuckled. “I hope so, Miss 
Townsend. 

“I mean to say, that I think you can be 
trusted.” 

“Well,” stammered Nancy, forcing back 
another chuckle, “I hope so, to that too, Miss 
Townsend.” She was surprised at the 
woman’s manner and puzzled to understand 
its meaning. The dog was again snoozing 
on the rug. 

“Let’s sit down,” suggested Miss 
Townsend. 

“Oh, all right,” faltered Nancy, in de¬ 
spair now of ever catching up on the delayed 
work. 

“You see, it’s this way,” began the 
woman, making room for herself in the big 
chair that was serving as storage quarters 


THE GIRL AND THE BOY 


15 


for Teddy’s miscellany. “Some people are 
very proud—” 

Nancy was simply choking with 
impatience. 

“I mean to say, they are so proud they 
won’t or can’t ever give in to each other.” 

“Stubborn,” suggested Nancy. “I’m 
that way sometimes.” 

“And brother and sister,” sighed Miss 
Townsend. “I never could believe that 
Elmer, my own brother, could, be so— 
unreasonable.” 

“Why, what’s the matter?” Nancy spoke 
up. “You seem so unhappy.” 

“Unhappy is no name for it, I’m 
wretched.” The distress shown on Miss 
Townsend’s face was now unmistakable. 
Nancy forgot even the unwashed breakfast 
dishes. 

“Can I help you?” she asked kindly. 

“Yes, you can. What I want is to come 
in here sometimes—” 

“Why, if you’re lonely for your old 
place,” interrupted Nancy. 


16 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 

“It isn’t that. In fact I just can’t ex¬ 
plain,said Miss Townsend, picking up her 
hand bag, nervously. “But I’m no silly 
woman. We’ve agreed to sell this place to 
your mother and I’m the last person in the 
world to make a nuisance of myself.” 

“You needn’t worry about that,” again 
Nancy intervened, sympathetically. 

“You are a kind girl, Nancy Brandon, 
and I guess your mother has made no mis¬ 
take in buying the Whatnot Shop for you. 
You’ll be sure to make friends, and that’s 
what counts next to bargains, in business,” 
declared the woman, who had risen from the 
big chair and was staring at Nancy in the 
oddest way. 

“If I had a chance—” again the woman 
paused and bit her thin lip. She seemed to 
dread what she evidently must say. 

“I’ll be busy here tomorrow,” suggested 
Nancy briskly, “and then perhaps you 
would like to help me. But I really would 
like to get the rough dirt out first. Then 
we can put things to rights . 92 


THE GIRL AND THE BOY 


17 


“The fact is,” continued Miss Townsend, 
without appearing to hear Nancy’s sugges¬ 
tion, “I have a suspicion.” 

“A suspicion? About this—store?” 

“Yes, and about my brother. He’s an old 
man and we’ve never had any real trouble 
before, but I’m sorry to say, I can’t believe 
he’s telling me the truth about an important 
matter. That is, it’s a very important mat¬ 
ter to me.” 

“Oh,” said Nancy lamely. She was 
beginning to have doubts of Miss Town¬ 
send’s mental balance. 

“No, Elmer is a good man. He’s been 
a good brother, but there are some things—” 
(a long, low, breathful sigh,) “some things 
we have individual opinions about. And, 
well, so you won’t think me queer if I ask 
you to let me tidy the shop ?” 

“Why—no, of course not, Miss Town¬ 
send.” 

“Thank you, thank you, Nancy Bran¬ 
don,” emotion was choking her words. She 
was really going now and Tiny with her. 


18 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


u And perhaps it would be just as well not to 
say anything about it if nay brother should 
drop in,” concluded the strange woman. 

“Oh, do you suppose he will?” asked be¬ 
wildered Nancy. “I mean, will he drop 
in?” 

“He’s apt to. Elmer is a creature of 
habit and he’s been around here a long time, 
you know.” The dark eyes were glistening 
behind the gold framed glasses. Miss Town¬ 
send was still preparing to depart. 

Nancy opened the screen door and out 
darted Tiny. 

“Good-bye, my dear, for the present,” 
murmured Miss Townsend, “and I hope you 
and your mother and your brother will— 
be happy—here,” she choked on the words 
and Nancy had an impression of impending 
tears. “We wouldn’t have sold out, we 
shouldn’t have sold out, but for Elmer 
Townsend’s foolishness.” 

Back went the proud head until the lace 
collar on Sarah Townsend’s neck was jerked 


THE GIRL AND THE BOY 


19 


out of place, a rare thing indeed to happen 
to that prim lady. 

“Good-bye,” said Nancy gently, “and 
come again, Miss Townsend.” 

“Yes, yes, dear, I shall.” 


CHAPTER II 

DINNER DIFFICULTIES 

Nancy jerked her cretonne apron first one 
way and then the other. Then she kicked 
out a few steps, still pondering. When 
Nancy was thinking seriously she had to be 
acting. This brought her to the conclusion 
that she should hurry out to the porch and 
look after Miss Townsend, but she had de¬ 
cided upon that move too late, for the lady 
in the voile dress was just turning the cor¬ 
ner into Bender Street. 

Nancy’s face was a bed of smiles. They 
were tucked away in the corners of her 
mouth, they blinked out through her eyes 
and were having lots of fun teasing her two 
deep cheek dimples. She was literally all 
smiles. 

“What a lark! Won’t Ted howl? The 

dog and the—the chimney secret,” she 
20 


DINNER DIFFICULTIES 


21 


chuckled. “And dogs know. You can’t 
fool them.” She came back into the store 
and gazed ruefully at the squatty stove that 
mutely stood guard. 

“I don’t suppose mother will want that 
left there all summer,” Nancy further 
considered. “It might just as well be put 
out in the shed, and the store would look lots 
better.” 

She could not help thinking of Miss Town¬ 
send’s strange visit. The lady was unmis¬ 
takably worried, and her worry surely had 
to do with the Whatnot Shop. 

“But I do hope we don’t run into any old 
spooky stories about this place,” Nancy 
pondered, “for mother hates that sort of 
thing and so do I—if they’re the foolish, 
silly kind,” she admitted, still staring at the 
questionable fireplace. 

“What-ever can Miss Townsend want to 
be around here for? No hidden treasures 
surely, or she would say so and start in to 
dig them up,” decided the practical Nancy. 
The clock struck one! 


22 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


“One o’clock!’’ she said this aloud. “Of 
course it isn’t,” laughed the girl. “That 
clock has been going since the moving and it 
hasn’t unpacked its strike carefully. But, 
just the same, it must be eleven o’clock, and 
as for the morning’s work! However shall 
I catch up?” 

One hour later Ted was in looking for 
lunch. He had been out “exploring” and 
had, he explained, met some fine fellows who 
were “brigand scouts.” 

“I’m goin’ to join,” he declared. 
“They’re goin’ to let me in and I’m goin’ to 
bring a lot of my things over to the den. 3 ’ 

“Den?” questioned Nancy. “Where’s 
that?” 

“Secret,” answered Ted. “An’ anyhow, 
it isn’t for girls.” This was said in a pay- 
you-back manner that Nancy quickly chal¬ 
lenged. 

“Oh, all right. Very well. Just as you 
say, keep it secret if you like,” she taunted, 
“but I’ve got a real one.” The potatoes 


DINNER DIFFICULTIES 


23 


were burning but neither of the children 
seemed to care. 

Ted looked closely at his sister and was 
convinced. She really was serious. Then 
too, everything was on end, no dinner ready, 
nothing done, the place all boxes, just as 
they were when he left. Something must 
have been going on all morning, reasoned 
Ted. 

“Good thing mother didn’t come home, 
Sis,” he remarked amicably. “Say, how 
about—chow?” 

“Chow?” 

“Yes. Don’t you know that means food 
in the military, and I’m as starved as a 
bear.” 

“Well, why don’t you get something to 
eat ? I understood we were to camp, share 
and share alike,” Nancy reminded him, giv¬ 
ing the simmering potatoes a shake that sent 
the little pot-cover flying to the floor. 

“That was your idea. But mother said 
you had to be sure we ate our meals,” con- 


24 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


tended Ted. “I’ll get the meat. It’s meat 
balls, isn’t it?” 

“It will be, I suppose, when I make them,” 
said Nancy, deliberately shoving everything 
from one end of the table with a sweep that 
rattled together dishes, glasses and various 
other breakable articles. 

There was no doubt about it, Nancy 
Brandon did hate housework. Every thing 
she did was done with that degree of scorn 
absolutely fatal to the result. Perhaps this 
was just why her mother was allowing her 
to try out the pet summer scheme. 

“I’d go mad if I had to stick in a 
kitchen, ’ ’ N ancy declared theatrically. 
“I’m so glad we’ve got the store.” 

“But we can’t eat the store,” replied Ted. 
“Here’s the meat. Do get it going, Sis. 
I’ve got to get back to the fellows.” 

“Ted Brandon! You’ve got to help me 
this afternoon. Do you think, for one in¬ 
stant, I’m going to do everything?” 

“ ’Course not, I’ll do my share,” promised 


DINNER DIFFICULTIES 


25 


the unsuspecting boy. “But just today 
we’ve got something big on. Here’s the 
meat.” 

“Big or little you have just got to help 
me, Ted. Look at this place! It seems to 
me things walk out of the boxes and heap 
themselves up all over. Now, we didn’t 
take those pans out, did we?” 

1 i I don’t know, don’t think so. But here’s 
a good one. It’s the meat kind, isn’t it?” 

“Yes. Give it here.” Nancy took from 
his hand a perfectly flat iron griddle. “I’ll 
fix up the cakes if you make place on the 
table. We ’ll eat out here. ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ All right. ” Ted flew to the task. 6 6 But 
you know, Sis, mother said we might eat in 
that sun porch. It’s a dandy place to read. 
Look at the windows.” 

Nancy had flattened the chopped meat into 
four balls and was pressing them on the 
griddle. 

“There. What did you do with the 
potatoes?” 


26 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


16 Nothing. I didn’t take them. ’ ’ 

6 ‘But we had potatoes—” She lighted 
the gas under the meat. 

‘ 6 Sure. I smelled them burning. ’ 9 

6 ‘Well, hunt around and see if you can 
smell them now,” ordered Ted’s sister. “I 
can’t eat meat without potatoes.” 

Ted dropped his two plates and actually 
went sniffing about in search of the lost food. 
Meanwhile Nancy was standing at the stove, 
a magazine in one hand and the griddle 
handle in the other. Her eyes, however, 
were not upon the griddle. 

Presently the meat was sizzling and its 
odor cheered Ted considerably. 

“Don’t let’s mind the potatoes,” he sug¬ 
gested. “I can’t find them.” 

“Can’t find them? And I peeled three I 
We’ve got to find them.” 

“Then you look and I’ll stir the meat.” 

“It doesn’t have to be stirred . 99 But 
Nancy stood over the stove just the same. 

“Then what are you watching it for?” 

“So it won’t burn, like the potatoes.” 


DINNER DIFFICULTIES 


27 


1 4 Maybe they all burned up.’ ’ Ted didn’t 
care much for potatoes. 

“Oh, don’t be silly. Where’s the pan?” 

“Which pan?” 

“Oh, Ted Brandon! The potato pan, of 
course!” 

4 4 Oh, Nancy Brandon! What potato pan, 
of course! Has it got a name on it?” 

Nancy dropped her magazine on a littered 
chair, in sheer disgust. She realized the 
meat was cooking; (it splattered and splut¬ 
tered merrily on the shallow griddle,) and 
she too was hungry. Ted might be satisfied 
to eat just bread and meat, but she simply 
had to have freshly cooked potatoes. 
Wasn’t housework awful? Especially 
cooking ? 

There was a jangle of the store bell, ac¬ 
tually some one coming at that critical mo¬ 
ment. 

“Oh, dear!” groaned Nancy. 44 What a 
nuisance! I suppose I’ll have to go—” 

44 But the meat?” Ted was getting des¬ 
perate. 


28 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


“It’s almost ready.’’ Nancy wiped her 
hands on the dish towel and hurried to the 
store. 

“A man!” she announced, as she went to 
open the screen door. 

Ted left his post and cautiously stole after 
her. A customer was a real novelty and 
Ted didn’t want to miss the excitement. A 
pleasant voice filled in the moment. A 
gentleman was talking to Nancy. 

“I’m glad to find some one in,” he was 
saying. “Since my friend, Elmer Town¬ 
send, left here I’ve been rather—that is, I’ve 
missed the little place,” explained the man. 
Ted could see that he was very tall and 
looked, he thought, like a school teacher, 
having no hat on and not much hair 
either. 

“We’ve just been unpacking,” Nancy re¬ 
plied. She was conscious of the confusion 
in the store as well as she had been of things 
upset in the kitchen. 

“Oh, yes,” drawled the man, stepping be¬ 
hind the counter. “It will take you some 


DINNER DIFFICULTIES 29 

time to go over everything. But you see, 
Mr. Townsend and I are great friends, and 
I know where most of the things are kept. 
You don’t mind if I take a look for a ball of 
twine?” 

“No, certainly not,” agreed Nancy. 

“I can get you that,” spoke up Ted. “I 
had it out last night,” and he jumped behind 
the counter to the littered cord and twine 
box. 

Nancy pulled herself up to that famous 
height of hers. She smelled—something 
burning! 

i ‘ Ted !’ 9 she screamed. “It’s a-fire! The 
kitchen! I see the blaze ! 9 9 

“The meat!” yelled Ted, springing over 
the low counter and following his sister to¬ 
ward the smoke filling place. 

“Oh-h-h-!” Nancy continued to yell. 
“What shall we do!” 

“Don’t get excited,” ordered the stranger. 
“And don’t go near that blazing pan. Let 
me go in there,” and he brushed Nancy aside 
making his way into the untidy place, which 


30 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


now seemed, to the frightened girl, all in 
flames. 

‘ ‘ The meat—gosh!’ 9 moaned poor Ted, for 
the stranger had opened the back door, and 
haying grabbed the flaming pan with that 
same towel Nancy had tossed on the chair, 
he was now tossing the blazing pan as far out 
from the house as his best fling permitted. 

“ There!” he exclaimed, brushing one 
hand with the other. “I guess we’re safe 
now.” 

“Oh, thank you, Mister, Mister — 99 Nancy 
waited for him to supply the name, but he 
only smiled broadly. 

“Just call me Sam,” he said pleasantly. 

“Sam?” echoed Ted. 

“Yes, sonny. Isn’t that all right ?’’ asked 
the stranger. 

They were within the cluttered kitchen 
now and, as is usually the case with girls of 
Nancy’s temperament, she was much dis¬ 
tressed at the looks of the place. In fact, 
she was making frantic but futile efforts to 
right things. 


DINNER DIFFICULTIES 


31 


“What’s the matter with Sam?” again 
asked the man, curiously. 

“Oh, nothing,” replied Ted. “Only it 
isn’t your name.” 

“No? How do you know?” persisted the 
stranger, quizzically. 

“You don’t look like a Sam,” said Ted, 
kicking one heel against the other to hide 
his embarrassment. He hadn’t intended 
saying all that. 

The man laughed heartily, and for the 
moment Nancy forgot the upset kitchen. 
But the dinner! 

“I hope your dinner isn’t gone,” re¬ 
marked the stranger who wanted to be called 
Sam. 

“Oh, no,” replied Nancy laconically, 
avoiding Ted’s discouraged look. “That 
was only some—some meat we were cook- 
ing.” 

“Can’t keep house and ’tend store with¬ 
out spoiling something. But I feel it was 
somewhat my fault. Suppose we lock up 
and trot down to the corner for a dish of ice 


32 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


cream ?” he suggested. “It’s just warm 
enough today for cream; don’t you think 
so?” 

“Oh, let’s!” chirped Ted. A hungry boy 
is ever an object of pity. 

“You go,” suggested Nancy, “but I think 
I had better stay here.” 

‘‘Oh, no. You’ve got to come along. Let 
me see. If you call me Uncle Sam what 
shall I call you?” 

“I’m Nancy Brandon and this is my 
brother Ted,” replied Nancy. “But I’d 
like much better to call you by your real 
name.” 

“Beal name,” and he laughed again. “I 
see we are going to be critical friends. Now 
then, since you insist Sam won’t do suppose 
we make it Sanders. Mr. Sanders. How 
does that name suit?” and he clapped Ted’s 
shoulders jovially. 

“Then Mr. Sanders, you and Ted go along 
and get your cream. I really must attend to 
things here,” insisted Nancy. “We are all 


DINNER DIFFICULTIES 


33 


so upset and mother will expect us to have 
things in some sort of order.” 

c ‘Oh, Sis, come along,” begged Ted. 
“I’ll help you when we get back. It won’t 
take a minute.” 

Hunger is a poor argument against food, 
and presently the back door was locked, the 
front door was locked, and the two Bran¬ 
dons with the man who called himself Mr. 
Sanders, because they refused to call him 
Uncle Sam, were making tracks for the ice 
cream store. 

Burnt potatoes, burnt meat with ice cream 
for dessert, thought Nancy. But she was 
still convinced that business was more im¬ 
portant than housekeeping. 

“Glad we didn’t bum up,” remarked Ted, 
as he trotted along beside Mr. Sanders 

“Never want to throw water on burning 
grease,” they were advised. “And always 
keep a thing at full arm’s length, if you must 
pick it up. Of course, if you turned out the 
gas and pushed the pan well in on the stove 


34 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


it would eventually burn out, but think of 
the smoke!” 

“You bet!” declared Ted, as they reached 
the little country ice cream parlor. Two 
girls, whom Nancy had seen several times 
since she came to Long Leigh, were just 
leaving the place and she thought they 
looked at her very curiously as they passed 
out. Then, she distinctly heard one of them 
say: 

< ‘ Fancy! With him ! 91 

And Nancy knew she had made some 
sort of mistake in accepting the well- 
intentioned invitation. 


CHAPTER III 

BELATED HASTE 

Instinctively Nancy sought a sheltered 
corner of the ice cream room. She was 
greatly embarrassed to have come along the 
road with a stranger whom she knew noth¬ 
ing about, and now she was determined to 
leave him alone with Teddy. There must 
be something odd about him, to have drawn 
that remark from the girls. Nancy looked 
at him critically from her place below the 
decorated looking glass, and decided he did 
appear queer to her. 

“But I’m just starved,” she told herself, 
“and I’ve got to have something to eat.” 
The girl in the gingham dress, with a great 
wide muslin apron, took an order for cake 
and cream and a glass of milk. Fortu¬ 
nately, Nancy had her purse along with her. 
That much, at least, she had already learned 
about being a business woman. 

35 


36 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 

Teddy was chatting gaily with the man 
down near the door. They seemed to be 
haying a great time over their stories, and 
Nancy rightly suspected the stories con¬ 
cerned Ted’s favorite sport, camping. 

She ate her lunch rather solemnly. 
Everything seemed to be going wrong, but 
the escape from fire, with the frying meat 
on a shallow griddle, was surely something 
to be thankful for. 

Oh, well! Only half a day had been lost, 
and she really couldn’t have done more when 
Miss Townsend took all that precious time 
with her lamentations. 

Miss Townsend! Nancy sipped the last 
of her milk as she reflected on the little dog’s 
interest in the old fireplace. Of course, 
Miss Townsend would come again, and Tiny 
would always be along with her. And 
Nancy hadn’t yet told Ted about that ex¬ 
perience. 

“ Just buying a country store didn’t seem 
to mean buying a lot of freaks along with 
the bargain,’’ Nancy speculated. “And 


BELATED HASTE 


37 


now here’s Mr. Baldy who wants to be called 
after Uncle Sam, going right in back of my 
counter and helping himself—” 

c 6 Beady, Sis!” called out Teddy, as he 
waited for Mr. Sanders to pay his bill. 

“You go along, Ted,” called back Nancy. 
“I’ve got to stop some place, but I’ll be there 
in time to open the door for you.” 

Ted never questioned one of those queer 
decisions of Nancy’s. He knew how useless 
such a thing would be; so off he went with 
the man in the short sleeved shirt, while 
Nancy tarried long enough to give them a 
fair start. 

Then, easily finding a way through the 
fields, she raced off herself, although getting 
through thick hedges and climbing an occa¬ 
sional rail fence, proved rather tantaliz¬ 
ing. 

In front of the store she found Mr. San¬ 
ders just leaving Ted. They were both talk¬ 
ing and laughing as if the acquaintance had 
proved highly satisfactory, but it irritated 
Nancy. 


38 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


“Now, I suppose, he’ll come snooping 
around, ’ 9 she grumbled. ‘ ‘ Well, there’s one 
thing certain, I’m not going to keep an old- 
fashioned country store. No hanging 
around my cracker barrels,” she told her¬ 
self, although there was not, and likely never 
would be a cracker barrel in the Whatnot 
Shop. 

Once more left to themselves, the burnt 
dinner was not referred to, as Ted helped at 
last to clear up the disordered kitchen. Not 
even the lost poatoes came in for mention as 
brother and sister “made things fly,” as 
most belated workers find themselves 
obliged to do. 

“Here, Ted, get the broom.” 

Ted grabbed the broom. 

“No, let me sweep. You empty those 
baskets of excelsior.” 

“Where?” 

“Where?” 

“Yes. Can we burn it?” 

“No, never. No more fire for us,” 


BELATED HASTE 


39 


groaned Nancy. “ Just dump the stuff some 
where.” 

“But we can’t, Sis,” objected Ted. 
“Mother ’specially said nothing could be 
dumped around.” 

“Well, do anything you like with it, but 
just get it out of the way,” and Nancy’s ex¬ 
cited broom made jabs and stabs at corners 
without quite reaching them. 

Ted was much more methodical. He 
really would do things right, if only Nancy 
would give him a chance. Just now he was 
carefully packing the excelsior in a big 
clothes basket. 

“You know, Nan,” he remarked, “Mr. 
Sanders is awfully funny.” 

“How funny?” asked Nancy crisply. 

“Oh, he knows an awful lot.” 

“He ought to, he’s bald headed,” an¬ 
swered Nancy, implying there-by that Mr. 
Sanders was an old man and ought to be 
wise. 

“Is he?” asked Ted innocently. 


40 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


“For lands sake! Ted Brandon!” ex¬ 
claimed Nancy. “Can’t you think what 
you’re saying? Is he what?” 

The thread of the argument thus entirely 
lost, Ted just crammed away at the excel¬ 
sior. 

“I’m just dying to get at the store,” said 
Nancy next. “I want to fix that all up so 
that mother will buy more things to put in 
stock.” 

“She’s going to bring home fishing rods. 
I’m goin’ to have a corner for sport stuff, 
you know,” Ted reminded the whirl-wind 
Nancy. 

“Oh, yes, of course, that’s all right. But 
we’ll have to see which corner we can spare 
best. The store isn’t any too big, is it ?” 

“Big enough,” agreed the affable boy. 
“And I’ll bet, Nan, we’ll have heaps of sport 
around here this summer. There’s fine fel¬ 
lows over by the big hill. That’s more of 
a summer place than this is, I guess.” 

“Where does your friend Uncle Sam 
live ?’* 2 


BELATED HASTE 


41 


“You mean Mr. Sanders. Why, he didn’t 
say, hut he went up the hill toward that 
old stone place.” 

4 ‘Yes. I wouldn’t wonder but he would 
live in an old stone place,” echoed Nancy 
sarcastically. 

“Why, don’t you like him?” 

“Like him?” 

“I mean—do you hate him?” laughed 
Ted. His basket was filled and he was gath¬ 
ering up the loose ends of the splintered 
fibers upon a tin cover. 

“I don’t like him and I don’t hate him, 
but I do hope he won’t come snooping 
around my store,” returned Nancy. 

Teddy stopped short with a frying pan 
raised in mid air. He swung it at an imag¬ 
inary ball, then put it down in the still 
packed peach basket. 

“Now, Nan,” he protested, “don’t you go 
kickin’ up any fuss about Mr. Sanders. 
He always came around here; he’s a great 
friend of the Townsends \ ri 

“Ted Brandon!” Nancy flirted the dust 


42 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


brush at the gas stove, “do you thing I am 
going to take all that with this store ? Did 
we buy all the Townsends’ old—old cronies 
along with the Whatnot Shop ?” 

“There’s someone,” Ted interrupted, as 
the store bell jangled timidly. 

“Oh, you go please, Ted,” begged Nancy, 
who had glimpsed girls’ skirts without. 
“I’m too untidy to tend store this after¬ 
noon.” 


CHAPTER IV 

NEW FRIENDS 

Nancy never looked as untidy as she 
really felt. In fact, she always looked “ in¬ 
teresting and human,” as her friends might 
say, but she was sensitive about the disorder 
she pretended to despise. Now, here were 
those two girls! She simply could not go in 
the store as she looked. 

“You’re all right,” Ted insisted, as they 
both listened to the jangling bell. ‘‘You 
look good in that yellow dress.” 

‘‘Good?” she took time to correct. “You 
mean—something else. And it isn’t yel¬ 
low, ’ ’ she countered. 6 i But please, Ted, you 
go. There’s a dear. I’ll do something for 
you—” 

Ted started off dutifully. “But I won’t 
know,” he argued. 

“Run along, like a dear,” whispered 
Nancy, for persons were now within the 

43 


44 NANCY BEANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


store, she could easily hear them talking 
and could even see their reflections in the 
little hall mirror. 

Ted went. He was such a good-natured 
boy, and Nancy was glad to notice once more 
“so good-looking/’ 

After exchanging a few questions and an¬ 
swers with the girls in the store, Ted was 
presently back again in the kitchen. 

“Blue silk!” he sort of hissed at Nancy. 
“They want —blue silk.” 

“ We haven’t any. Tell them we ’re out of 
it.” 

Ted went forth with a protest. 

A few seconds later he again confronted 
Nancy. 

“Blue twist then. What ever on earth is 
blue twist V- 

“We haven’t any!” Nancy told him 
sharply. “We’re all out of sewing stuff, 
except black and white.” 

“Oh, you come on. They’re just 
laughin’ at me. It’s your store. You go 
ahead and ’tend it.” Ted was on a strike 


NEW FRIENDS 


45 


now. He wasn’t going to be that kind of 
store keeper. Twist and silk! 

“But I’m so dirty,” complained Nancy, 
brushing at her skirt and then patting her 
disordered hair. She had been rushing 
around at a mad rate since noon hour and 
naturally felt untidy. 

“Well, any how, go tell them,” suggested 
Ted. “They’re just girls like you. You 
needn’t worry about your looks.” His eyes 
paid Nancy a decided compliment with the 
careless speech. Evidently she was not the 
only one who found good looks in the family. 

Out in the store the girls were waiting, 
and when she finally walked up to them, 
Nancy was instantly at ease. 

“Oh, hello!” greeted the stouter one. 
She was genuinely pleasant and Nancy at 
once liked her. “You’re the girl we’ve been 
trying to meet. This is Vera Johns and I’m 
Ruth Ashley. We live over on North Road 
and we’ve been wanting to meet you.” 

“I’m Nancy Brandon,” replied Nancy 
pleasantly, “and I’m glad to meet you, too. 


46 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


I was wondering if I would get acquainted 
away out here. Won’t you sit down? 
Here’s a bench,” brushing aside the papers. 
“It takes so long to get things straightened 
out.” 

The girls murmured their understanding 
of the moving problem, and after Teddy 
had called out from the back door, that he 
was going “over to see the fellows,” all three 
girls settled down to chat. 

“Is it really your own store?” asked 
Ruth. She had reddish-brown hair, gray 
eyes and the brightest smile. 

“Yes,” replied Nancy. “Just a little 
summer experiment. You see, I perfectly 
despise housework and mother believes I 
should learn something practical. I just 
begged for a little country store. I’ve al¬ 
ways been so interested reading about 
them.” 

“How quaint!” murmured Vera Johns. 
Her tone of voice seemed so affected that 
Nancy glanced quickly at her. Was she 
fooling? Could any girl mean so senseless 


NEW FRIENDS 


47 


a remark as “How quaint!” to Nancy’s tell¬ 
ing of her practical experiment ? 

“Do you mean,” murmured Nancy, 
“why, just—how quaint?” 

“Yes, isn’t it?” Vera again sort of lisped. 
At this Nancy was convinced. Vera was 
that sort of girl. She would he apt to say 
any silly little thing that had the fewest 
words in it. Just jerky little exclamations, 
such as Nancy’s mother had taught her to 
avoid as affectations. 

Vera’s hair was of a toneless blonde hue, 
cut “classic” and plastered down like that 
of an Egyptian slave. Her eyes, Nancy no¬ 
ticed were a faded blue, and her form— 
Nancy hoped that she, being tall herself, 
did not sag at all corners, as did Vera Johns. 

“I think it’s a wonderful idea,” chimed 
in Ruth, “to have a chance really to try out 
business. Just as you say, Nancy, we learn 
to wash doll dishes as soon as we can reach 
a kitchen chair. Then why shouldn’t we 
learn to make and count pennies as early as 
we possibly can?” 


48 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


“Do you hate housework too, Euth?” 
Nancy asked, hoping for the joy of finding a 
mutual understanding. “Are you also anx¬ 
ious to try business ?” 

“I hate housework, abhor it,” admitted 
Euth, dimpling prettily, “but mother says 
we just have to get used to it, so we won’t 
know we’re doing it. You would be sur¬ 
prised, Nancy, how easy it is to wash dishes 
and dream of babbling brooks.” 

“Eeally!” That was Vera again. “I 
adore dishes, but I won’t dream of hobbling 
brooks, ever.” 

“Bobbling,” repeated Euth. “That’s 
good, Vera. I suppose they bobble more 
than they babble. But I guess you’re not 
much of a dreamer, Vera,” she finished, in 
a doubtful compliment. 

Nancy was amused. Euth was going to be 
“good fun” and Vera was already proving 
a pretty good joke. Their acquaintance 
was surely promising, and Nancy responded 
fittingly. 

She had time to notice in detail each of 


NEW FRIENDS 


49 


these new friends. Ruth was dimply and 
just fat enough to he happily plump. She 
also was correspondingly sunny in her dis¬ 
position. She wore her hair twisted into 
three or four “Spring Maids’’ and it gave 
her the effect of short, curled hair. Her 
summer dress was a simple blue ratine, and 
Nancy admired it frankly. 

Vera was affected in manner, in style, in 
dress and every way. Her hair was so ar¬ 
ranged Nancy couldn’t be sure just how it 
was done, but it looked like a model in a hair¬ 
dresser ’s window. Also, she wore, bound 
around it a Roman ribbon, with a wonderful 
assortment of rainbow colors. Her costume 
was sport, with a very fancy jacket and a 
light silk and wool plaid skirt. That she 
had plenty of money was rather too ob¬ 
viously apparent, and Nancy wondered just 
how she and Ruth were connected. 

They were inspecting the newly acquired 
little store. 

“And you are the manager, the pro¬ 
prietor—” 


50 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


“The clerk and the cashier/’ Nancy in¬ 
terrupted Ruth. “ I ’ve always loved to play 
store, so now, mother says, she hopes I’ll be 
satisfied. But this is a very old-timey place. 
I don’t see how the Townsends ever made 
it pay.” 

“Miss Townsend is a queer old lady,” re¬ 
plied Ruth. “I guess of late years they 
didn’t have to worry about making things 
pay in the store.” 

44 Why Ruthie! ’ ’ exclaimed Yera. 4 4 Don’t 
you know every body says they went bank¬ 
rupt?” 

44 Oh, that,” laughed Ruth. “I guess Mr. 
Townsend lent out his money and couldn’t 
get it back handy.” 

4 4 But he and his sister had a perfectly des¬ 
perate fight over it,” insisted Vera, eyes 
wide with curious interest. 

44 Desperate,” repeated Ruth, as if trying 
to give Nancy a cue to Vera’s queer vocab¬ 
ulary. “I can imagine their sort of des¬ 
perate fight. Sister Sarah would say to 
Brother Elmer: 4 Elmer dear, you really 


NEW FRIENDS 


51 


can’t mean a thing like that,’ ” imitated 
Ruth, “and Brother Elmer would clasp and 
unclasp his thin hands as he replied: ‘I’m 
sorry, Sister Sarah, but it looks that way.’ ” 

Ruth and Nancy laughed merrily as the 
little sketch ended. 

“That’s about how desperate those two 
would fight,” Ruth declared. 

“Then why did they sell out?” demanded 
Vera. “Every body knows they lost every¬ 
thing.” 

“We haven’t actually bought the place,” 
Nancy explained, “just have an option on it. 
You see, we had to go to the country every 
summer, and mother thought this might suit 
us. It is so convenient for her to commute, 
and Ted and I can’t get into a lot of mis¬ 
chief in a place like this. So it seems, at 
least,” she hastened to add. 

“Well, if you let your brother go around 
with that queer old fellow we saw him with 
today, he may get into mischief,” intimated 
Vera, mysteriously, with a wag of her 
bobbed head. 


52 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


“Mr. Sanders? What’s the matter with 
Mr. Sanders?” demanded Nancy, rather 
sharply. 

“Oh talk, talk, and gossip,” Ruth inter¬ 
posed. “Just because he sees fit to keep his 
business to himself—” 

“You know perfectly well, Ruth, that is 
more than gossip,” insisted Vera. 

‘ ‘ What is ? What’s the mystery ? ’ ’ again 
demanded Nancy, dropping her box of lead 
pencils rather suddenly. 

“Well,” drawled Vera, getting up with a 
tantalizing deliberateness, “if you were to 
see a person in front of you one minute and 
have him vanish the next—” 

A peal of laughter from Nancy broke in 
rudely upon Vera’s recitation. 

“All right,” Vera added, in a hurt tone. 
“Don’t believe me if you don’t want to, but 
just wait and see.” 

“Disappearing Dick?” chanted Nancy 
gaily. “Do you mean to say he’s one of 
those so-called miracle men?” 

“Oh, no, nothing of the sort,” protested 


NEW FRIENDS 


53 


Ruth. “But there is something—different 
about him. A lot of people say he does dis¬ 
appear, but of course, there’s nothing un¬ 
canny about it. It’s probably just clever,” 
Ruth tried to explain. 

“Rather,” drawled Vera. 

And Nancy could not suppress an impolite 
but insistent chuckle. 


CHAPTER V> 

ORIGINAL PLANS 

During the next half hour the girls busied 
themselves playing store. Ruth was almost 
as keenly interested in the little place as was 
Nancy, herself, but it was noticeable that 
Vera was more curious. She poked into the 
farthest corners, even opening obscure little 
cubby-holes that Nancy had not yet dis¬ 
covered. All the while they talked about the 
Townsends and the mysterious Mr. San¬ 
ders, declaring that something around the 
Whatnot Shop held the clue to the Town¬ 
send disagreement, and Mr. Sanders’ mys¬ 
terious power of disappearing. 

“I think it’s the funniest thing,” rumi¬ 
nated Nancy, clapping the wrong cover on 
the white thread box, “here we came away 
out here to be peaceful, quiet and studious. 
Mother looked for a place just to keep Ted 

64 


ORIGINAL PLANS 


55 


and me busy, and then we run into a regular 
hornet’s nest of rumors.” 

“Don’t you know,” replied Ruth, “that 
still waters run deepest?” 

44 But I didn’t know we had to take on a 
whole Mother Goose set of fairy tales with 
a little two cent shoe-string shop,” pro¬ 
tested Nancy. “Of course it will serve me 
right if I get into an awful squall. My re¬ 
bellion against the long-loved house-work 
idea, is sure to get me into some trouble, 
isn’t it?” 

“Who doesn’t rebel secretly?” admitted 
Ruth. “Isn’t it fairer to up and say so than 
to be always hoping the dishpan will spring 
a leak, and dish-towels will blow away?” 
Ruth was making rapid strides in gaining 
Nancy’s affection. She was so unaffected, 
so frank, and so sensible. 

Vera wasn’t saying much but she was pok¬ 
ing a lot. Just now she was fussing with 
some discarded and disabled toys. She held 
up a helpless windmill. 

“Imagine!” she said, simply. 


56 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


“Well, what of it?” asked Ruth. “It 
was pretty—once!” 

“Pretty! As if anyone around here 
would ever buy a thing like that.” 

“Let me see it,” Nancy said. “I’m sure 
Ted would love 6 a thing like that.’ He’d 
spend days tinkering with it.” Nancy took 
the red and blue tin toy and inspected it 
critically. As she wound a tiny key a little 
bell tinkled. 

“Lovel-lee!” cried Ruth. “That’s a 
merry wind. Or is it a tinkle-ly wind? 
Anyway it’s cute. Save it for the small 
brother, Nancy. And I think he’s awfully 
cute. Here’s something else for his camp,” 
she offered, handing Nancy over a red, white 
and blue popgun. 

“Great!” declared Nancy. “Ted has 
been too busy to rummage yet, but he’s sure 
to be thrilled when he does go at it. Yes, I 
think Ted is cute, and I hope the disappear¬ 
ing man won’t cast a spell on him,” she 
finished, laughing at the idea, and meanwhile 
inspecting the toy windmill. 


ORIGINAL PLANS 


57 


“You can joke,” warned Yera, “but my 
grandmother insists that what everyone 
says must be true, and everyone says Baldy 
Sanders is freakish.” 

“Baldy,” repeated Nancy gaily. “I no¬ 
ticed that. But he has enough of eyes to 
make up for the lost hair. I never saw such 
merry twinkling eyes.” 

“Really!” Vera commented. “I never 
notice men’s eyes.” 

“Just their bald heads,” teased Ruth. 
“Now Yera, if Mr. Sanders is a professor, 
as some folks claim, and if he ever gets our 
class in chemistry, I’m afraid you would 
just have to notice his merry, twinkling 
eyes. Anyhow,” and Ruth cocked up a 
faded little blue muslin pussy cat, “he’s 
merry, and that is in his favor. What are 
you doing with that windmill, Nancy 

“Inspecting it. It’s a queer kind of 
windmill. Look at the cross pieces on top 
and this tin cup.” 

All three girls gave their attention to the 
queer toy. Ibwas, as Nancy had said, dif- 


58 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 

ferent from the usual model. It had cross 
pieces on top instead of on the side, and one 
piece was capped off with a metal cup. 

“I’ll save it for Ted,” Nancy concluded. 
“But I hope it isn’t dangerous. It takes 
boys to find out the worst of everything. 
Just before we moved, most of our furniture 
is in storage you know,” she put in to ex¬ 
plain the scarcity of things at the country 
place, “Ted went up to the attic and found 
an old wooden gun. It would shoot peas, 
and what those boys didn’t shoot peas at 
wasn’t worth mentioning. I ’ll put the freak 
windmill away for him, though. It looks 
quite harmless.” 

“Oh, I think it’s just joyous to have a 
shop,” exclaimed Ruth, “and if you’ll let 
me, Nancy, I’ll come in and ’tend some¬ 
times.” 

“I’d love to have you,” replied Nancy 
earnestly. “I did expect my chum, Bonny 
Davis, to visit me, but she’s gone down to 
the shore first. Bonny’s lots of fun, I’m 


ORIGINAL PLANS 


59 


sure you’d like her if she does come,” de¬ 
clared Nancy, loyally. 

“I like her name,” Ruth answered. 
i 6 What is it ? Bonita ? ’’ 

“No, it’s really Charlotte, but she’s so 
black we’ve always called her Bonny from 
ebony, you know. Now Vera, what have you 
discovered?” broke off Nancy, looking over 
to the corner in which Vera was plainly in¬ 
terested. 66 Anything spooky ? ’ ’ 

“Not spooky,” replied Vera, “but I never 
saw such odd looking fishing things. No 
wonder the Townsends went bankrupt. 
Here are boxes and boxes of wires and 
weights, and I don’t know what all. Oh, I’ll 
tell you!” she exclaimed, in a rare burst of 
enthusiasm. “Let’s have a fishing sale?” 
“And sell fish!” teased Ruth. 

“No,” objected Nancy, taking Vera’s 
part. “I think a special sale of fishing and 
sport supplies would be great. Let’s see 
what we’ve got toward it.” 

“It would draw the boys and that’s some- 


60 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


thing,” joked Ruth. “But I’ll tell you 
what, Nancy, you had better be careful what 
you try to sell to the young fishermen 
around here. They’re pretty particular 
and rather good at the sport. I like to fish 
myself.” 

“Oh, I’d love to,” declared Nancy. 
“Where do you go?” 

“Dyke’s pond and sometimes the old mill 
creek,” replied Ruth. “But we only get 
sunnies there. There’s perch in the pond, 
though.'*’ 

This led to discussing the fishing pros¬ 
pects in brooks, ponds and other waterways 
around Long Leigh, until it was being 
promptly decided that Ruth and Vera 
should very soon introduce Nancy to the 
sport. The idea of having a sale of the out¬ 
fit at the shop was also entered upon en¬ 
thusiastically, until the afternoon was melt¬ 
ing into shadows before the girls realized it. 

“But what ever you do,” Ruth cautioned 
Nancy, “don’t let any one induce you to take 
the Whatnot out of the window. That’s the 


ORIGINAL PLANS 


61 


sign of this old shop that’s known for miles 
and miles.” 

“I think a cute little windmill would be 
lots nicer,” suggested Vera. “That What¬ 
not is—atrocious.” 

“Windmill!” repeated Ruth. “But we 
don’t sell windmills.” 

‘ ‘ Certainly not. Neither do we sell What¬ 
nots,” contended Vera. 

But we sell the things that are on the 
Whatnot,” argued Ruth. “And besides 
Whatnot stands for What Not!” 

It was amusing Nancy to listen to their as¬ 
sumed partnership. They were both talk¬ 
ing about “our shop” and insisting upon 
what “we sell.” This established at once 
a comradeship among all three, and Nancy 
was convinced that her own desire to go into 
business was not, after all, very queer. 
Other girls, no doubt, shared it as well, but 
the difference was—Nancy’s mother. She 
was the “angel of the enterprise,” as Nancy 
had declared more than once. 

“And I’ll tell you,” confided Vera, quite 


62 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


surprisingly, “if you’ll let me, I’ll help you 
with your housework. I don’t mind it a 
bit, and you hate it so.” 

“Oh, that’s just lovely of you, Vera,” 
Nancy replied, while a sense of fear seized 
her, “but I really must do some of it, you 
know. Even a good store keeper should 
know how to cook a little,” she pretended, 
vowing that her house would be in some kind 
of order before Vera ever even got a peek 
into the living rooms. 

When they were finally gone Nancy stood 
alone in the little store, too excited to de¬ 
cide at once which way to turn. She liked 
the girls, especially Euth, and even Vera had 
her interesting features. At least she said 
odd things in an odd way, and her drawl was 
“delicious/” Nancy admitted. Of course 
she was gossipy. There was all that non¬ 
sense about Mr. Sanders. As if any human 
being could really disappear. Ted would 
just howl at the idea, Nancy knew, and if 
the man were really a professor of some sort, 


ORIGINAL PLANS 


63 


that ought to make him interesting, she re¬ 
flected. At any rate, he was, the girls had 
said, a friend of the Townsends, and Nancy 
would make it her business to ask Miss 
Townsend about him the very next time she 
came into the store. 

Her mind busy with such reflections, 
Nancy hooked the screen door, (the shop was 
not yet supposed to be open for business) 
and turned toward the upset kitchen. 

“I’ve just got to do something with it,” 
she promised, “before mother comes. I 
wish Ted would hurry along home. Of 
course, he’s a boy and boys don’t have to 
worry about kitchens.” 

Nevertheless, as Nancy dashed around she 
did make a real effort to adjust the dis¬ 
ordered room, for her pride was now 
prompting her. Whatever would Vera 
Johns say to such a looking place? And 
was all this fair to a mother so thoughtful 
and so good-natured as was Nancy’s? 

“I begin right here at this door,” she de- 


64 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


cided, feeling she had to begin at a definite 
spot, “and I just straighten out every single 
thing from here to the back door.” 

Peach baskets idling with the odds and 
ends of packing, Ted’s red sweater, Nancy’s 
blue one, Nancy’s straw hat that she felt she 
must have within reach and which therefore 
had been “parked” on the floor, safe, how¬ 
ever, under a big chair, and a paste-board 
box of books that she also didn’t want to 
loose track of, the portable phonograph 
cover, the phonograph itself was reposing 
safely on the corner of the sink where Ted 
had been trying a new record; all these and 
as many more miscellaneous articles Nancy 
was briefly encountering in her general 
clearing up plan “from one door to the 
other.” 

But she forged on, the old broom doing 
heroic duty as a plough cutting through the 
debris. Finally, having gotten most of the 
stuff into a corner, she undertook to scatter 
it in a way peculiar to one with business, 
rather than domestic, instincts. 


ORIGINAL PLANS 


65 


“1*11 need the baskets, all of them, when 
I’m settling the store,’’ she promptly de¬ 
cided, “and I’ll get Ted to put the box of 
books in there too, so I can read while I’m 
waiting. Then the phonograph—That can 
go in there just as well, it may draw cus¬ 
tomers.” At this Nancy laughed, but she 
picked up the little black box, it had been 
her birthday present, and put it right on the 
small table under the old mantle in the store. 
A phonograph in the store seemed attrac¬ 
tive. 

“I guess we’ll find the store handy for 
lots of things,” Nancy was thinking, for the 
difference in the size of their old home, and 
the limits of this new one, was not easy to 
adjust. 

With a sort of flourish of the broom at the 
papers and bits of excelsior that were still 
an eyesore about, Nancy at length managed 
to “make a path,” as she expressed it, 
through the kitchen. 

“And I’ll gather some flowers to greet 
mother with,” she insisted. “There’s no 


66 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 

reason why we shouldn’t make a pretty room 
of a kitchen like this, with one, two, three, 
good sized windows,” she counted. 

But the glorious bunch of early roses must 
have felt rather out of place, trying to con¬ 
serve their wondrous perfume from con¬ 
tamination with the remains of a smudgy 
odor from burnt potatoes—which by-the- 
way, had not yet come to light, not to say 
anything of the real fire smell of burnt meat, 
that ran over from a pan-cake griddle into 
a seething gas flame. 

“Oh, those flowers!” exhaled the trium¬ 
phant Nancy, pushing the dishpan away so 
as not to bend the longest stalk, which was 
brushed against it. “Won’t mother just 
love it here?” 

After all, is not the soul of the poet more 
valuable than the skill of a prospective 
housewife ? 


CHAPTER VI 

FAIR PLAY 

Mrs. Brandon was such a mother as one 
might readily imagine would be the parent 
of Nancy and Ted. In the first place she 
was young, so young as to be mistaken often 
for Nancy’s big sister. Then she was lively, 
a real chum with her two children, but more 
important than these qualities, perhaps, was 
her sense of tolerance. 

Fair play, she called it, believing that the 
children would more surely and more cor¬ 
rectly learn from experience than from con¬ 
tinuous preaching. Perhaps this was due 
to her own experience. She had been a girl 
much like Nancy. She had not inherited 
the so-called domestic instinct; no more did 
Nancy. To that cause was ascribed Nancy’s 
unusual disposition toward business and her 
dislike for all kitchens. 

67 


68 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


“Those roses!” she breathed deeply over 
the scented mass Nancy had gathered. 
“Aren’t they just um-um? Wonderful?” 

“I knew you would like them, mother,” 
responded Nancy happily. “I’m sorry we 
couldn’t get things slicked up better today, 
but we were so constantly interrupted. 

“You will be, Nan dear. It is always just 
like that when business runs into house¬ 
work.” 

“Oh, but say, Mother,” interrupted Ted. 
“It’s just great here. There’s the best lot 
of boys. And we’ve got a camp, a regular 
brigand camp—” 

“Look out for mischief, Teddy boy,” re¬ 
plied his mother fondly. “I want you both 
to have a fine time, but a little mischief goes 
a long ways toward spoiling things, you 
know,” she warned, earnestly. 

“Oh, I know. I’ll be careful. We won’t 
have any real guns nor knives, nor 
swords—” 

“Ted Brandon! I should hope not!” 
cried Nancy. “Beal guns and swords and 


FAIR PLAY 


69 


knives, indeed! If you go out playing with 
that sort of ruffian—” 

“But they aren’t. We don’t have them. 
No real firearms a-tall,” protested Ted. 
“And the boys are nice fellows.” 

“But just imagine what I would do if you 
came in hurt. And mother away and every¬ 
thing,” reasoned Nancy foolishly, as if she 
enjoyed the sensation. “It is not like it was 
when Anna was with us. Mother,” Nancy 
asked, “don’t you really think we should 
have someone in Anna’s place?” 

“No, girlie, I don’t,” promptly replied the 
mother, who was just taking from the gas 
oven a deliciously broiled steak. “While we 
had Anna you never had a chance to find out 
all the simple things that you didn’t know. 
Anna was an ideal maid, but maids are not 
educators and none of us can learn without 
being given a chance. Ted, please get the 
ice water. And I would try, Nancy, to have 
every meal, no matter how simple it is, 
served either on the side porch or in the din¬ 
ing room,” counselled Mrs. Brandon. 


70 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


“ Nothing so demoralizes us as upset kitchen 
meals.” 

“Yes, mother, I know that,” admitted 
Nancy, who, with her mother nearby for in¬ 
spection, was daintily arranging the salad. 
“As a matter of fact, I lose things in the 
kitchen. Imagine losing the potatoes, pan 
and all!” 

A hearty laugh followed the recalling of 
Nancy’s and Ted’s dinner disaster. But 
even to that accident Mrs. Brandon insisted 
that her daughter was one of the girls who 
must learn by experience, so there were no 
long arguments given to point out her weak¬ 
ness. 

“But Anna is coming back, isn’t she?” 
Ted pleaded. A boy wants to be sure of his 
meals in spite of all the educational proc¬ 
esses necessary for training obdurate sis¬ 
ters. 

“Yes, dear. I expect she will be back to 
us in the autumn, and I’m sure she will be 
benefited by her vacation,” said Mrs. Bran¬ 
don. “Anna does not really have to work 


FAIR PLAY 


71 


now. The salary and light expenses of 
maids soon place them in a position to re¬ 
tire, you know,” she pointed out practically. 

“And besides,” chimed in Nancy, “it’s 
lots of fun to live all alone for the summer, 
at least. Why, if Anna were here she 
would be forever poking in and out of the 
store, and really mother,” Nancy’s voice fell 
to a very serious tone, “when I get things 
going, I intend to make you take a vacation. 
I’m going to make that store pay ” 

“That’s lovely, girlie,” replied the 
mother, “and I’m sure you and Ted are go¬ 
ing to be wonderful little helpers. Now, 
come eat dinner. You must be ravenous. 
Here, Nancy, carry along the beans with the 
butter. Make each hand do its share to help 
out each foot, you know,” she teased. 

“But I’m starved,” declared Ted, mak¬ 
ing a rather risky dive for the three dinner 
plates and hurrying into the little dining 
room with them. ‘ 4 That ice cream was good 
while we were eating it, but it doesn’t last 
long, does it, Nan?” 


72 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


This brought up the story of Mr. Sanders’ 
treat, and as her children related it, each 
outdoing the other in vivid description and 
volumes of parentheses, Mrs. Brandon lis¬ 
tened with but few interruptions. When 
the story was told, however, she gave her 
version of the gossip concerning the 
stranger. 

“He is really a professor, I’m sure,” she 
stated, “for Miss Townsend told me that 
much. Of course professors can be as queer 
as other folks—” 

“Queer?” interrupted Ted, holding his 
plate out for another new potato. 

“Yes, they are often odd,” admitted his 
mother, smiling at the boy’s joke. “But 
then, too, we expect to depend upon their in¬ 
telligence for reasonable explanations.” 

“Mother, anyone would know you were a 
librarian, the way you talk,” said Nancy. 
“I suppose we act booky too, only we can’t 
realize it ourselves. Ted, your knife is 
playing toboggan—” 

“I’m too starved to notice,” said Ted. 


FAIR PLAY 


73 


“Hope you won’t lose the potatoes and bum 
the meat again, Sis,” he added, “I can’t 
stand starvation.” 

“I didn’t do it, we did it,” insisted 
Nancy. “I’m sure we were both getting 
dinner—” 

“But about Miss Townsend, dear,” her 
mother forestalled their argument. “Bid 
she say she regretted agreeing to sell?” 

“No, mother; that’s the queer part of it 
all, ’ ’ Nancy replied. They were now settled 
at their meal and could chat happily. “She 
acted so mysterious about everything. And 
you should see her little dog, Tiny, sniff 
around! Honestly, I thought he’d sniff 
his little stumpy nose off at the fireplace. 
By the way, mother, can’t we have the old 
stove moved out into the back storeroom? 
We don’t want it standing around all sum¬ 
mer waiting for a blizzard next Christmas, 
do we?” 

“No. But I’m afraid we will have to put 
off that sort of work until my vacation, 
Nancy. You must remember, dear, we have 


74 NANCY BEANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


only agreed to let you run the little store 
practically as it is, to sell out Miss Town¬ 
send’s stuff and to give you some ex¬ 
perience.” 

“Oh, yes. I know.” said Nancy a little 
ruefully. “But mother—” she hesitated. 
Then began again, “Mother, I simply can’t 
have the girls come in and have things so up¬ 
set, and I won’t, positively won’t have Miss 
Townsend fussing around—” 

“You can’t be rude to her, Nan,” the 
mother said rather decidedly. “And, after 
all, there is nothing here she doesn’t know 
about.” 

“Well, there seems to be,” sighed Nancy, 
“or else what did she start right in to search 
for? And the very first time she met me, 
too.” 

“Perhaps her brother lost some papers, or 
something like that,” suggested Mrs. Bran¬ 
don. “I do know he is a little odd in his 
manner.” 

“But if it were only that she wouldn’t 


FAIR PLAY 


75 


need to act so mysteriously about it, would 
she, mother ?” 

“And the dog,” put in Ted. “He 
couldn’t know about papers, could he^ 
Dogs are awfully wise, I know that much, 
and I’m going to get one—” 

Paying no attention to Ted’s last sen¬ 
tence, Nancy continued to deplore Miss 
Townsend’s threat of more visits to her 
shop. 

“And the girls, that is Vera, said that she 
and her brother had a quarrel about the 
place before they left,” Nancy continued. 
“Vera is talkative, but I could see myself 
that Miss Townsend was awfully unhappy 
about something.” 

“Yes,” snapped Ted, again allowing his 
fork to rest in the prohibited sliding posi¬ 
tion from his plate, “and she’s the one who 
talks about Mr. Sanders, too. That girl 
Veer a—” 

“Vera, Ted. Just like very,” said Nancy 
critically. 


76 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


“Yeah,” groaned Ted. “Just like scary, 
too. That’s what she is, scary. And the 
fellows say Mr. Sanders is a first-rate scout, 
a real scout. They say he’s even a scout¬ 
master—” 

“Did they say anything about his habit 
of disappearing?” asked Nancy, quizzically. 

“Now, Nan. You know very well that 
isn’t so. It couldn’t be. How could any 
one dis-sa-peer ?” inquired Ted, emphati¬ 
cally. 

“That wasn’t the question, brother,” in¬ 
sisted Nancy. “I just asked you if the boys 
spoke of his reputation as Disappearing 
Dick?” 

This was too much for Ted, and again his 
mother was forced to intervene. 

“Anyway,” the boy managed to interject, 
“if they did say something about it they 
didn’t say he was a spook, like your old 
Very-scary girl told it.” 

“Ted Brandon! Nothing about spooks! 
We never even mentioned them, that I re¬ 
member. But they said that Mr. Sanders 


FAIR PLAY 


77 


lived somewhere around here but no one 
knew where, that he went right up the hill 
to the stone house and never went in the 
house nor in the barn nor anyplace but just 
disappeared,” rattled off Nancy. 

4 'Why daughter!” protested Mrs. Bran¬ 
don, "how perfectly absurd. I’m surprised 
that you should listen to such truck.” 

"But of course I don’t believe it, Mother, 
it’s just funny, that’s all,” explained Nancy, 
who had begun to carry the dishes to the 
kitchen quite as if she just loved to do it. 

According to their new schedule, both Ted 
and Nancy were expected to do their part in 
the clearing of the table, and washing the 
dishes, and as this was a beautiful summer 
evening, the children "fell to” very 
promptly. 

"It’s too lovely to stay inside,” remarked 
Nancy. "You’ll come out with us, won’t 
you Mother? There’s heaps of things you 
haven’t yet had a chance to see around 
here,” she pleaded. 

"But we really must get things in order,” 


78 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 

declared the mother. “You and Ted hurry 
along with your work—Ted will dry and you 
wash tonight, Nancy, and meanwhile I’ll 
sort of dig in—’’ 

“Mother I You can’t. You have just got 
to have your evenings free,” protested 
Nancy. “You need lots of fresh air out 
here—” 

“I know, dear, but after all we are just 
ordinary mortals and we must live as such. 
That means—civilization, around here,” 
laughed Mrs. Brandon, who was already 
“digging in.” 

“I’ll put these pans away first.” She 
paused. “Whatever is this? I do declare, 
children, here are your lost potatoes, packed 
away in among the empty pans. Now, who 
could have done that?” 

“Ted did,” replied Nancy. “He was 
sorting the tins. But Mother,” she said, in 
a grieved tone, “I know I did waste a lot 
of time today.” 

Nancy was carrying out a tray but she had 
stopped abruptly. No punishment could be 


FAIR PLAY 


79 


greater to her than the loss of a summer 
evening out of doors, except it was her 
mother’s loss of that self-same evening. 

“I’m so sorry,” she sighed. “I know I 
did idle my time today, Mother dear, but I 
can’t bear to have you—pay for it.” 

“Nonsense, dear, I don’t mind. Really 
the exercise will do me good,” insisted Mrs. 
Brandon. “Just attend to the dishes and 
you won’t know these quarters presently. 
I’m glad we found the potatoes,” she said, 
but Nancy was now too serious to joke. 

A call from the side porch checked their 
argument. It was Ruth calling to Nancy. 

“Come along!” she shrilled through the 
screen door. “There’s going to be a band 
concert—” 

“Oh, I can’t, Ruth,” Nancy called back. 
“I must do—” 

“You must go, dear,” interrupted her 
mother. 

At this Ruth came in to wait. Ted was 
already off—he did not need to be coaxed to 
give up his task, and when dishes were not 


80 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


being washed surely they could not be dried. 

But Nancy felt guilty. In fact the band 
concert, novelty though it was, with firemen 
and a baseball team making up the “ scram¬ 
bled’ ’ programme, was not loud enough to 
still the voice of regret. 

“I can’t bear to think of mother doing, 
now on this beautiful evening, what I should 
have done today,” she confided to Ruth, as 
they waited between numbers. 

“I’ll help you tomorrow,” offered Ruth 
kindly. “And I won’t bring Yera. She’s 
rather critical—” 

“I’ll be up at daybreak,” resolved Nancy, 
really determined now to get the little coun¬ 
try home in order. 

A band concert in Long Leigh was plainly 
an important event, and the numbers of 
persons crowding about the band-stand on 
the village green attested hearty apprecia¬ 
tion for the musical efforts. The firemen, 
however, seemed to draw out the heaviest ap¬ 
plause, but that was because old Jake Jacobs 
the best piccolo player around, had been 


FAIR PLAY 


81 


training them. Still, there was Pete Van 
Riper, the drummer on the baseball side of 
the platform. He certainly could drum, 
and the small boys around kept calling to 
him in baseball parlance such encourage¬ 
ments as “Make it a homer, Pete! Hug the 
mat! Hit her hard!” and such outfield 
coaching. 

Ruth had met a number of her friends 
and some she introduced to Nancy, but the 
concert was spoiled for Nancy. She could 
see and actually feel her mother working in 
that little country place to which she had 
come, just to give Ted and Nancy a happy 
vacation. 

When her worry was becoming so keen 
that she felt she must ask Ruth to go home 
with her, there pushed into the crowd an old 
man in a broad-brimmed straw hat, al¬ 
though the sun was well out of all mischief. 

6 6 Look! ’’ whispered Ruth. ‘ ‘ There’s Mr. 
Townsend! And that’s Mr. Sanders—with 
him!” 

Just then the two men stepped over to the 


82 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


little mound where the girls were. They did 
not see the girls, but Mr. Sanders drew Mr. 
Townsend to a sudden stop in a space di¬ 
rectly in front of Nancy and Ruth. 

“I tell you, Sanders,” Mr. Townsend 
said, in a voice not at all suitable for his 
surroundings, “the whole town is talkin’. 
They say all kinds of things and you had 
better out with the whole thing.” 

Mr. Sanders laughed as if he enjoyed the 
joke. 

‘ 4 Keep cool, keep cool, friend,” he said. 

But Mr. Townsend was by no means keep¬ 
ing cool, and he said so, sharply. 

“And I’ve left my home, got my sister on 
her ear, made a poor man’s name for 
myself—” 

Mr. Sanders grasped his arm with a sud¬ 
den movement, perfectly evident to the as¬ 
tounded girls. 

“When you are tired of your bargain, 
Elmer Townsend,” he said, “just let me 
know.” 


CHAPTER VII 

THE SPECIAL SALE 

They had worked like slaves, according 
to Nancy, while Ted insisted he was too 
tired even to eat. 

“But it’s going to be a grand success,” 
promised Ruth. “I can hardly wait until 
morning for the doors to open.” 

“Sale now going on!” chanted Isabel, a 
friend of Ruth’s, who had come in to help. 
“Ladies and gentlemen! Step this way for 
your fish lines!” she called out, testing the 
possibilities of the next day’s special sale. 
“Here’s where you get your fish-hooks that 
never slip, and your tackle that always 
tacks, and as for sinkers—” 

“You’ll sink, first shot,” Ruth inter¬ 
rupted, from her perch on the stepladder, 
where she was waving a Japanese lantern 
as if that filmsy article had anything to do 
with fishing tackle. 


84 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 

“Oh say! Look here! Who took my 
best reel?” cried Ted. “I want that for 
myself. It was in a dollar box—” 

“Then it’s got to be sold,” called back 
Nancy. She was sitting on the counter 
counting fish lines, a dozen to each box. 

‘‘Sold nothing ! 99 retorted Ted. “I’d like 
to know why I can’t have the best—” 

“You can, Teddy dear,” Euth told him. 
“You have been a perfect lamb to help us 
all afternoon, and I never did see two legs 
do more trotting than yours have done since 
Nancy locked the front doors and put us all 
to work like prisoners. You may certainly 
have the reel, and there’s a wonderful pole 
back of the empty cigar boxes—there on 
that first shelf. See it? It’s in a gray 
case—” 

“Euth Ashley! Whose store is this?” 
Nancy pretended to be very severe but her 
jolly little laugh filtered through the words 
in giggles and titters. “If you are going 
to give things away, why not start in with 
the perishables? There’s a basket of ap- 


THE SPECIAL SALE 


85 


pies, Ted himself bought out of the general 
fund, and unless they can be sold as bait, I 
don’t see what we’re going to do with them.” 
She had counted out all the fish lines and 
was resting against the old-time candy 
glass case, now neatly filled with post cards 
and stationery supplies. 

They had had a merry time getting the 
Whatnot Shop ready for the first special 
sale, and girl-like, had expended a lot of 
energy upon pretty effects in the arrange¬ 
ments of articles. Mrs. Brandon “ chipped 
in” as Ted expressed it, and Nancy was 
able to supplement her stock considerably. 
She had also made a very attractive poster 
for the big front window, in fact, it was so 
attractive that Kuth put another sign right 
alongside of it which stated: 

This poster, handmade, for sale 
Price $2.00 

“We always sell our charity posters,” 
she insisted, “and they are never as pretty 


86 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


as this. Just look at that fish. What is 
he, Nancy? A cat-fish or a pickerel?” 

“I’m totally ignorant of the varieties,” 
replied Nancy grandly. “But I like the 
flecks on his back so I made him up flecked.” 

“The fellows will be here awfully early,” 
Ted warned the girls, “so you better be 
ready to sell, quick as the door’s opened.” 

“We’ll be here,” sang out Ruth. “And 
Ted, be sure to tell them this is a strictly 
cash sale. No charging and no refunds. If 
you buy a fish pole and find it’s a curtain rod 
you’ve got to go fishing with the curtain 
rod. Nancy, here’s those fancy little col¬ 
ored bags to fool the poor fish with. Where 
do you want them put? Some place very 
safe, for they’re easily broken, you know,” 
Ruth cautioned. 

“Right here in the show case,” Nancy di¬ 
rected. “They’re too cute to be stuck away 
on a shelf. Ted, you better run off and have 
some fun. I don’t want mother to think 
we’ve been stunting your growth. You 
know how particular she is about exercise.” 


THE SPECIAL SALE 


87 


t 1 Exercise!’ ’ repeated Isabel. 66 As if the 
poor child hasn’t been stretching every mus¬ 
cle to its utmost all afternoon. Take my 
advice, Ted, and lie down. I’ll make an ice 
bag out of an old bathing cap— 

But Ted was not waiting to hear Isabel’s 
kind, if foolish, offer. His merry shout as 
he rounded the corner, however, spoke de¬ 
cidedly against ice bags as well as couches. 

“Let’s quit,” suggested Nancy. “Hon¬ 
estly girls, I thought housework was te¬ 
dious, but I can’t see much difference. I 
believe I’ll be winding fish lines all night, 
I’ve got them tangled in my brain.” 

“Then you’re the one for the ice bags,” 
pronounced Isabel. “I love to make them 
and I love to put them on pretty heads. 
Here Buth, let’s put her on the couch. I 
think she looks a bit feverish.” 

Kicking and protesting Nancy was 
forced to get down from “her perch,” and 
stretch out on the little leather couch in a 
favorite corner of the sun porch. Then, 
while Buth literally held her there, Isabel 


88 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


cracked ice, put it in a green rubber bathing 
cap, that leaked like a sieve, tied it up most 
imperfectly, and presently clapped it on 
Nancy’s head. 

“Oh, please! It’s leaking! I’m all wet. 
Isabel, you’re freezing my—my thinker!” 
yelled Nancy, as she struggled to free her¬ 
self from her playful companions. 

“That’s the idea,” replied Isabel. 
“We’ve got to freeze your thinker to 
make you forget your fish lines. Here 
now, dearie,” she mocked “lie perfectly 
still—” 

“You’re spoiling my pretty new gown,” 
yelled Nancy, referring to the oldest and 
most faded gown she could find that morn¬ 
ing, in preparation for the extra work. 

But Isabel held the bag in the general di¬ 
rection of Nancy’s forehead, while little 
icy cold streams tinkled down her neck and 
into her ears. Ruth served as body guard, 
and almost kept Nancy on the couch, her 
feet, arms, and other “loose ends” hanging 
over untidily. 


THE SPECIAL SALE 


89 


The store bell was jerked suddenly and 
violently. 

“Oh me, oh my!” groaned Nancy, jump¬ 
ing up so as to smash the ice bag to the floor, 
cut its string loose and send the remaining 
chunks of ice flying. “I can’t go. Euth, 
will you—” 

“Love to ,’- 3 chanted Euth, starting off 
promptly. 

“Look at the puddle,” bewailed Isabel, 
but Nancy interrupted her. 

“No one, simply no one can come in to¬ 
day. Do run out, Belle and restrain Euth. 
Just listen to her sweetest tones—” 

Isabel went. She liked to “ ’tend store” 
and each possible customer represented to 
her, as well as to Euth, a possible adventure. 

“No, I’m not the proprietor,” Nancy 
heard Euth saying. 

“No, she really can’t see you,” was 
Isabel’s contribution. 

A man’s voice, full, rich, persuasive, was 
speaking in so low a tone that his words did 
not convey meaning to the listening Nancy. 


90 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


She listened! She crept nearer, and 
finally realizing that both Ruth and Isabel 
were not being able to dismiss the stranger, 
she attempted to right her rumpled self, to 
pat the unruly hair into place, and not 
knowing that her forehead looked like a 
beefsteak from the ice freeze, she sauntered 
out into the store. 

“This is Miss Brandon/’ announced 
Ruth as she entered. “She is the 
proprietor.’ ’ 

Nancy found herself in the presence of a 
very important looking young man. His 
Panama hat was on the counter, his suit 
case was on the floor, and he stood in the 
most attentive, courteous attitude, bowing 
as if she were meeting him in a reception 
room. 

“I’ve heard of your store, Miss Bran¬ 
don,” he said. “In fact, it’s fame has 
travelled far and wide, and I’m here rep¬ 
resenting a Boston firm of sporting goods. 
I would like you to see—” 

“Really,” faltered Nancy, “this is only 


THE SPECIAL SALE 


91 


sort of a play store. We are doing it for a 
vacation experience.’’ 

“Exactly the thing,” insisted the young 
man, who was not polite to the point of af¬ 
fectation but simply polite as a gentleman. 
“I know this territory pretty well, and you 
will possibly be surprised at the class of 
customers who will, doubtless, seek you out. 
The motor people come along here from 
Gretna Lake. There’s good fishing on that 
lake, and fishing supplies have a way of giv¬ 
ing out suddenly when the inexperienced 
handle them. If you will let me—” he was 
tackling the suit case. 

“But you see,” protested Nancy, much 
embarrassed, “I really have no authority 
to—buy. Mother is not here—” 

“You assume no obligation,” insisted the 
man. “As this is your store we are glad, 
in fact anxious, to leave you a sample line. 
If you sell them you make a very fair com¬ 
mission, if you do not I pick them up and 
try something else on my next trip.” 

He opened the case, and presently was dis- 


92 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 

playing a bewildering line of such fishing 
tackle and general sport supplies as Nancy 
had never dreamed of. Euth and Isabel 
were fascinated. They suggested, in spite 
of their better judgment, that Nancy 
stock up with the pretty little trout flies, the 
feathery kind tied to fish hooks. Then 
Ruth thought they ought to have at least 
one box of the dry flies, the sort that floats 
without the hook, and before they knew it 
the salesman had deposited upon the 
counter, goods worth so much money, that 
Nancy could only gasp at the transaction. 

“But I haven’t any place—” 

“This little case, if I may suggest,” said 
the salesman, “is admirably suited. You 
could move your cards to the far end, 
couldn’t you?” 

“Oh, yes,” chimed in Ruth, “and Nancy, 
just see the lovely window card!” She was 
holding up a big folder that had been neatly 
packed in, folded in sections, within the 
suitcase. “Why, it will be wonderful to 
have such goods, and I’m sure the summer 


THE SPECIAL SALE 


93 


folks from Breakneck Hill will just buy us 
out as soon as they hear we have such splen¬ 
did stuff/ : ’ 

“I think you are right/’ replied the 
salesman. ‘ ‘ But as you seem doubtful, 
Miss Brandon, I’ll return later and talk 
with your mother, if you wish.” 

Nancy considered quickly. Her mother 
should not be annoyed with such details; 
also, the special sale was to be a matter left 
entirely with the girls and Ted. He was 
claiming and entitled to a share in certain 
articles. So she answered: 

“I don’t think that will be necessary. 
Mother won’t object, I guess, if I don’t have 
to sign anything—” 

“Nothing whatever,” she was assured. 

“But how did you find out about us?” 
asked Isabel. “This is such a tiny store 
and it is on the back road, really.” 

“The tiny store on the back road with the 
quaint name Whatnot Shop is more at¬ 
tractive than a big public place,” replied 
the salesman. He had handed Nancy his 


94 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 

card and she saw that his name was W. S. 
Webster. u As a matter of fact, one of our 
firm was passing here in his car, and he left 
me the memorandum. But I’ve heard of 
the special sale of fishing tackle out on the 
Long Leigh road from perhaps a half dozen 
persons.” 

The girls gasped, simultaneously. They 
were overwhelmed. If their fame had thus 
travelled afar, what would the day of the 
sale bring them ? 

“Very well,” stammered Nancy, trying 
once again to keep her wet dress out from 
her neck while she worried over the effect 
of that besprinkled garment. “I’ll be glad 
to do what I can with the goods, but really, 
I had no idea of going in for such, such im¬ 
portant articles.” 

“If you will let me say so,” remarked 
Mr. Webster in a gentlemanly way, “I 
think you girls have the right idea. So 
many putter around with art stuff these 
days, that they don’t realize the big chances 
they are missing in business. Some of 


THE SPECIAL SALE 


95 


America’s brainiest women are heads of 
our wholesale firms, and they make more 
money than movie queens,” he finished 
pleasantly. 

When he was finally gone and the door 
well bolted this time, the three girls joined 
hands and danced around like a kinder¬ 
garten class. 

“Me for the movie queen!” sang out 
Isabel. “You, Nance and Euthie, can sell 
fish hooks. Just watch this pose and see if 
I couldn’t pass in a beauty contest—” 

There was a racket, a very noisy one, at 
the side door. 

“It’s Ted!” exclaimed Nancy, appre¬ 
hensively. 

“And he’s got a crowd with him.” 

“They can’t come in,” Nancy declared. 
“We are not going to show goods or take 
any advance orders.” 

“Oh me, oh my!” cried Euth. “No won¬ 
der the fine looking drummer said that the 
brainiest girls in America were in 
business.” 


96 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


“He didn’t,” contradicted Nancy. “He 
said women.” 

“Very well, Nancy. Just you wait. Go 
sit down on a big stump in the woods and 
wait. By and by you’ll be a woman.” 

Then, in spite of all their eloquence, in 
marched Ted heading a parade of the “fel¬ 
lers.” And what could Nancy do but show 
them the arrangements. 


CHAPTER VIII 

FISH HOOKS AND FLOATERS 

“Mother! Are you awake?” 

“Yes, dear.” 

“There’s someone knocking—” 

“I’m getting up.” 

The knocking continued. 

“Hey there, Nan!” called out Ted. “Get 
up and answer that noise. See what your 
old sale did! Wake us all up—” 

“Ted, hush! Be quiet, Mother’s going 
down—” 

“You ought to go. It’s your bargain 
day.” 

As usual Ted was charging Nancy with 
delinquency. He wasn’t really quarreling, 
but just talking, as Nancy defined it. Mrs. 
Brandon had been dressing when the early 
knock first sounded, so that she was able to 
get down stairs almost directly afterward. 

A dread, a sort of feeling that something 

97 


98 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


might happen in regard to that expensive 
outlay of goods left by the travelling sales¬ 
man, seized Nancy. She crept to the top 
of the stairs to listen, but all she could hear 
was a man’s voice; his words were lost be¬ 
hind the closed doors. 

She ventured down to the second landing. 
Her mother was chatting pleasantly with 
whoever the early visitor might be, and at 
the sound Nancy’s spirits rose. 

“He’s no collector,” she decided, turning 
quickly hack to her room and starting at 
once to dress. She must be ready early. 
All signs pointed to an early patronage, and 
although Ted had declared he would be up 
at daybreak, it was all right, Nancy con¬ 
cluded, for him to sleep until seven o’clock. 

Her mother was calling in a subdued 
voice. 

“Nancy, I’ll get breakfast now, as I hear 
you stirring,” she said. “I want to leave 
things ready for your lunch today, so I 
came down early.” 

“All right, Mother,” Nancy replied over 


FISH HOOKS AND FLOATERS 99 

the balustrade. “I’ll be down soon. Who 
called?” 

“Is Ted awake?” Mrs. Brandon was still 
restraining her voice. 

“He was, but he isn’t,” half whispered 
Nancy. “Wait, I’ll run down and help, 
then come up and dress later—” 

Curiosity was too much for Nancy’s pa¬ 
tience, so she merely tucked her hair tidily 
into a cap, and in slippers and robe joined 
her mother who was preparing breakfast. 

“Who was it?” she asked breathlessly. 

“Why, your famous Mr. Sanders,” re¬ 
plied Mrs. Brandon, indifferently. “He 
wanted a little model of some sort, a wind¬ 
mill, it looked like. I happened to spy 
it—” 

“The funny little windmill!” Nancy ex¬ 
claimed. “Why, we were wondering what 
that was. Did he say it was a model?” 

“Not exactly, but I judged it was. At 
any rate, dear, you mustn’t always be look¬ 
ing for mystery in Mr. Sanders’ doings. I 
would call him a very pleasant gentleman. 


100 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


Here, dear, stir this cereal. I want you and 
Ted to make sure you get enough proper 
food.” 

Nancy stirred the meal, which was re¬ 
ceiving a preliminary start before being put 
over the hot water in the double-cooker. 

“But you see, Mum,” she remarked very 
quietly, “he is queer. Whatever could he 
want a thing like that for? And why did 
he come for it so early?” Nancy asked. 

“He wanted it because it has something 
to do with his line, is the way he expressed 
it, and he came early because he has been 
away and just heard of your sale. If he 
waited later, he explained, the little wind¬ 
mill might have been swept away in the 
tumult,” Mrs. Brandon replied. This 
seemed to satisfy Nancy’s inquiries, but se¬ 
cretly Mrs. Brandon herself was just a 
little puzzled about Mr. Sanders. For in¬ 
stance, it had been very clear to her that he 
just laughed off, rather than explained, the 
purpose of the possible model. Something 
“in his line,” which he had forgotten to 


FISH HOOKS AND FLOATERS 101 


take away when the Townsends moved, 
seemed vague, to say the least. 

Nancy was now eating her breakfast with 
her mother. She confessed to having waked 
more than once during the night, in antici¬ 
pation of the big day. 

“And I’m going to send you a little sur¬ 
prise treat for lunch,” her mother confided. 
“I want you and the girls to enjoy your¬ 
selves in spite of your self-imposed busi¬ 
ness tasks, so I’m sending out some—ice 
cream!” 

“Oh, Mumsey—love!” exclaimed Nancy, 
jumping up and in giving her mother a bear 
hug almost spilling the last spoonful of 
grape fruit. “Aren’t you too ducky! 
We’ll have a regular party, and I’ll ask— 
How many have you ordered for?” she de¬ 
manded abruptly. 

“Two quart bricks. That’s counted 
twelve servings,” replied her mother. “Of 
course, one brick is for Ted, and you must 
help him a little.” 

“Of course, Mumsey-love,” promised 


102 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 

Nancy. “We’ll get every body out and 
close up shop from one until two, and have 
a regular party!” 

From that time until Nancy was almost, 
but not quite, ready “for the fray,” as she 
expressed it, she kept herself in a flutter of 
excitement. Her mother went into town as 
usual on the seven forty-five trolley, and 
even then there was a waiting list at the 
front door of the shop, children peering in 
the two broad windows which looked out 
onto the old-fashioned long porch. 

“Come on, Ted, hurry-up,” begged 
Nancy as her brother tarried over his break¬ 
fast. “The girls won’t be here until eight, 
and you’ve got to go outside and try to keep 
those boys quiet. They’ll be coming 
through the window if you don’t.” 

“Oh, that’s Buster, making all that 
racket,” declared Ted, getting another look 
at the paper which he was not supposed to 
read at the table. “I’ll go out and talk to 
them, in a minute,” he promised laconically. 

“Please do, then,” begged his sister. 


FISH HOOKS AND FLOATERS 103 

“You take it as easy as if we didn’t have a 
big responsibility.” 

“What responsibility?” he asked, ac¬ 
tually deciding to move his plump little self 
from the table. “I can’t see what you’re 
all so excited about.” 

“Of course you can’t. But I’ll tell you. 
Everybody, for miles and miles, knows 
about this sale, and we’ve got to get busy.” 
Nancy was peering anxiously out of the 
side window. “I do hope,” she said again, 
“that the girls will get here soon.” 

“Is that Yery-scary girl coming?” 
asked Ted. He was trying to set his blouse 
straight around his sun-burned neck. 

“You mean Vera. She’s gone away for 
a while—” 

“I hope she stays away,” snapped Ted. 
“I can’t seem to like her—” 

“I’m sure that’s too bad,” mocked Nancy. 
“She would feel dreadfully bad to hear 
that.” 

“Oh, don’t be funny. Listen! They 7 re 
hammering on the door. You had better 


104 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


open it or they’ll break the glass,” cautioned 
the boy. 

“Dear me, Ted,” exclaimed the excited 
Nancy, “I can’t go; perhaps you had better 
open it. Why didn’t you fix up a little,” 
she argued, looking critically at the usual 
vacation boy. “You might at least have put 
on a white blouse.” 

“To sell fish hooks?” roared Ted. 
“That’s a grand idea. Why, Nan, the fel¬ 
lows would think I was giving a party—” 

The noise at the front of the store was 
now becoming so insistent that both brother 
and sister found it imperative to respond. 

“Come on,” said Nancy, sighing rather 
miserably. “We may as well face it. But 
don’t let them back of the rope. We can’t 
wait on more than a few at a time.” 

At that Nancy and Ted entered the store. 

“Look—at—them!” gasped Ted. 

Faces were pressed against the windows, 
the door, against every inch of outside space 
that could command a view of inside the 
store, and they looked so funny, the flat 


FISH HOOKS AND FLOATERS 105 


noses, the white spots on cheeks, the opened 
months, bumping against the glass! 

“Hello! Hello!” shouted Ted as Nancy 
fumbled with the door lock. “What do you 
think this is ? A circus ? ’ ’ 

Then, as Nancy opened the door, there 
was the unavoidable falling in! 

“Please !” she begged. But the boys 
seemed actually massed as for some game. 

“Hey there!” urged Ted. “Whoever 
doesn’t behave can’t get waited on a-tall!” 

But his words had no effect upon the eager 
urchins. 

“I want that rod over there!” shouted 
Rory Jennings. He was tall, big and noisy. 

“That’s mine—that beaut in the win¬ 
dow,” insisted another. Ted called him 
Shedder, or something that sounded like 
that. 

“Hey, please, missus please,” begged a 
lad so freckled Nancy couldn’t see anything 
else but freckles. “Please missus,” he en¬ 
treated, “couldn’t you just hand me over 
that crab net? That’s all I want.” 


106 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 

“Hey there! Stop crowdin',” ordered a 
boy who was using all his strength to make 
matters worse. “She can’t wait on us if 
you don’t give her a chanst.” 

There were easily twenty-five or thirty 
youngsters in the crowd, and Nancy felt 
quite helpless to supply all their wants at 
once. The fact that goods were offered at 
the very lowest figure possible, that a 
twenty-five cent ball of fish line was marked 
ten cents, of course, accounted for the rush. 
Many boys could get hold of a dime, but a 
quarter was not so easy to pick up, it 
seemed. 

Then, too, the advertising, one boy telling 
the other, had done much to make the sale 
known; hence the early morning rush. 

“Now don’t muss everything up!” or¬ 
dered Ted, for a group of boys had laid hold 
of the fish-hook box, and it was impossible 
for Nancy to get it back. 

“You must not take things away from the 
counter,” she protested, for at that moment 
the box of sinkers was being carted off to the 


FISH HOOKS AND FLOATERS 107 


door, by Jud Morgan and Than Beach. 
They said they only wanted to pick out a 
couple where there was more room, but 
it was plainly a risky way to make their 
selection. 

“Dear me!” sighed Nancy to Ted. 
“Please look out and see if the girls are 
coming. These boys will have everything 
upset—” 

But the girls were coming, in fact they 
were just then elbowing their way in from 
the front door. 

“Hello—hello—hello!” called out Euth 
j oyfully. “ Isn’t this grand! Going to buy 
us out first thing—” 

“Oh, land sakes!” wailed Nancy. “I’ve 
been in here fifteen minutes and I haven’t 
sold a stick. We should have charged 
admission.” 

Isabel looked on rather importantly. 
Evidently she knew or thought she knew 
how to handle a crowd of boys. 

“You’ve got to get in line!” she an¬ 
nounced. 


108 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 

A laugh, a whole series of laughs was her 
answer. 

“Do you hear me?” she insisted, raising 
her voice to suit the occasion. 

“Sure, we hear you. Want us to clap?” 
answered impudent Sammy Larkins. 

“Now see here,” Ruth attempted to order. 
“If you boys really want to buy anything 
you have got to stand back and take 
turns—” 

No sooner had that order been given than 
everybody made a dash for the first place in 
line, and the tumult that followed all but 
drove Nancy under the counter. 

“Say, look here! Want us to put you all 
out?” demanded Ted, in unassumed indig¬ 
nation. 

“Try it!” tempted Buster, pretending to 
roll up sleeves he didn’t have. 

“But don’t you want to see the things?” 
cried out Ruth in desperation, for those boys 
were tumbling around the floor and actually 
fighting, at least they made that kind of 
noise, it seemed to the girls. 


FISH HOOKS AND FLOATERS 109 


“Su-ure!” came a chorus. 

Then Nancy had an inspiration. She got 
up on the high stool that stood by what used 
to he Miss Townsend’s desk and she imme¬ 
diately commanded attention. 

“I’ll tell you,” she began, “if you all sit 
down on the floor just where you are, the 
window sills or any place, I’ll tell you about 
some of the most interesting things we’ve 
got here. They are not for sale, but they 
belonged to a sea captain—” 

The magic word had the desired effect. 
At the word “sea captain” that crowd of 
boys, dropped “in their traces,” and it was 
then Nancy’s duty to unfold to them some 
wondrous tale. 

For boys like a story—when it’s about a 
sea captain even if they are out to buy bar¬ 
gain fishing tackle. 


CHAPTER IX 

THE BIG DAY 

As Ted said afterwards: “It was some 
story!” 

Nancy stood there on the stool, dangling 
an old rusty knife which she had just spied 
among the box of unclassified articles, and 
she told those boys a yarn, a regular old 
salt-yarn, which she frankly admitted was 
pure fiction. 

But how they listened! As Ruth ex¬ 
pressed it: “How hard they listened!” 

No more jostling, nor pushing nor under¬ 
hand squabbling. Every boy among them 
wanted to hear all that story, and conse¬ 
quently he was taking no chances on missing 
any of it. 

“And when the old sea captain looked into 
the poor half-frozen face of that baby he 
had picked up, lashed to an icy—an icy 
plank,” Nancy trilled, becoming so inter- 
110 


THE BIG DAY 


111 


ested in her subject she almost forgot the 
make up of it, “then he remembered,” she 
went on, “the big Newfoundland dog, Jack, 
who had fallen back into the sea exhausted 
from his long swim.” 

She stopped. The boys said 6 ‘ Gosh,’ ’ and 
“Gee Whiz.” Buster said “Jingo!” and 
there were probably many other subdued 
and impulsive exclamations of the crisp boy¬ 
ish variety. 

One little fellow who was sniffing audibly, 
piped up a question over Than’s shoulder. 

“Say miss,” he said. “Say Miss— 
Nancy,” he corrected himself, “could a fel¬ 
ler buy that there knife?” 

“Why,” flushed Nancy, “the knife hasn’t 
anything to do with the story—” 

“Naw!” came a chorus. “ ’Course not!” 

“It was a corkin’ good story,” applauded 
Nort Duncan, clapping grimy hands. 

“But you said the ole captain cut the 
ropes with a rusty knife—” the little fellow 
insisted. 

“Now look here, boys,” called out Ruth 


112 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


suddenly. “You are all settled down, nice, 
quiet and orderly. Suppose we begin to see 
what you want to buy. There are three of 
us to serve you, and if we divide you up in 
three groups, I’m sure we can give every 
single one of you the biggest bargain you 
ever got in fishing tackle.” 

After that, something like order pre¬ 
vailed, for most boys are not devoid of a 
sense of honor, not by any means, and surely 
after Nancy’s story they owed her attention 
and politeness. 

Ted helped. He was able to hand out the 
poles and took pride in doing so. They 
were, most of them, nice shiny, new bamboo 
canes, and it didn’t matter how long it took 
him to please a customer. In one hour, 
however, he had sold ten at fifty cents, five 
at seventy-five cents and two at a dollar each. 
Ted was delighted, and secretly agreed with 
Nancy that “business was the thing.” 

Meanwhile the girls were busy, and 
happy. Ruth had taken charge of the sink¬ 
ers and hooks. Isabel was having a fine 


THE BIG DAY 


113 


time with the crab nets and fancy reels, the 
nickel kind with the stem winders, while 
Nancy acted as general supervisor and di¬ 
rector of the entire stock. 

Things were going merrily and few dis¬ 
agreements marred the proceedings t (not to 
count the scooping up of fellows’ caps in 
trying out crab nets, or the occasional pro¬ 
test from someone who would resent being 
poked with new fish poles), when there ap¬ 
peared at the door a very pleasant looking, 
in fact a very “good-looking” young girl. 

6 *That’s Sanders’ girl,” said a hoy into 
Nancy’s ear. “You know the feller that 
—disappears,” he hurried to explain. 

Nancy had neither time nor opportunity 
to ask questions so she turned to meet the 
very blue eyes of the young girl in question. 

“Don’t let me interrupt you,” said the 
stranger. “I can wait,” and she stepped 
aside to let Tom Preston get change from a 
precious one dollar bill. 

Nancy noticed that the young lady had all 
the known signs of college life. She wore a 


114 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


worsted tam o’ shanter (in summer), she 
also wore a sweater to match, with a tan 
golf skirt and—heavy stockings, ending in 
good, strong, walking Oxfords. If these 
signs were not collegian, thought Nancy, 
then the girl must be an actress which she 
obviously was not. 

But she had so much personality, that was 
it, Nancy promptly decided while still count¬ 
ing out change for eager boys. Also, 
Nancy reasoned, she had such pronounced 
individuality, that one did not observe sep¬ 
arately her brown hair, her blue eyes and 
her lustrous, fine healthy skin. She just 
looked perfect, at least to Nancy, who al¬ 
ways loved the athletic type. 

“Sanders’ girl!” Nancy was thinking. 
She didn’t know he had a daughter, but the 
girl looked like him, especially around her 
firm, determined mouth. 

Buth left her boys and was now offering 
to wait on Miss Sanders. 

“I’m Sibyl Sanders, you know,” she told 


THE BIG DAY 


115 


Ruth, “and I just dropped in to see if I 
couldn’t pick up something for dad.” 

“We’re having quite a sale,” replied Ruth 
pleasantly. “When things thin out a little 
I should like to introduce you to Nancy 
Brandon. This is her idea of a vacation,” 
Ruth added quizzically. 

“Isn’t it splendid?” replied Sibyl, bright¬ 
ening with enthusiasm. “I just ran up to 
Long Leigh to see dad. He insists upon 
spending a lot of time up here,” she con¬ 
tinued, “and I feel I must look after him a 
little. I wonder if you have any pieces of 
wire or light springs, around ? He has use 
for that sort of material.” 

“Wire, springs!” Nancy heard the re¬ 
quest and a joke, that the disappearing man 
might slide away on wires and springs, 
flashed humorously through her mind. But 
again she found no chance even to whisper 
the joke to Isabel, for there were still boys 
demanding change. 

In the course of an hour, however, the 


116 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


youngsters were all “cleared out.” Their 
wants had been supplied, and the girls, with 
Sibyl, were chatting away about the first re¬ 
sults of the sale. 

“If they don’t go trying things out and 
then want us to change them,” worried 
Haney. “I told them positively we would 
exchange just absolutely not—a—thing,” 
she declared, most emphatically. 

“Let’s see how much we took in,” sug¬ 
gested Isabel. “I had no idea that a lot of 
small money could be so fascinating.” 

“Indeedit is,” Sibyl rejoined. “I’ve had 
experience at college sales, and it always 
seemed to me the peanut money was the most 
interesting to handle .’ 2 

This brought on some talk of her college, 
for just as Haney had guessed, she was a 
college girl. Finally, when the receipts 
were all counted and it was found that the 
boys, they who came in the first squad, had 
actually bought seventeen dollars worth of 
goods. 


THE BIG DAY 


117 


“It doesn’t seem possible!” Ruth ex¬ 
claimed, “and just look at the bushels of 
pennies!” 

“And we had better prepare for the next 
arrivals,” suggested Isabel. “The lake 
folks will be along presently on their morn¬ 
ing drives.” 

“And the early golfers returning from the 
links,” added Ruth. “Guess we better tidy 
things up a little. Those boys certainly can 
upset a place.” 

Isabel had found a roll of picture wire and 
three small screen door springs. These 
Sibyl bought without giving the slightest 
hint of the possible use her father was apt 
to put them to. Neither Isabel nor Ruth, 
however, paid as much attention to the odd 
purchase as did Nancy. 

“I do wonder,” Nancy remarked as Isabel 
tied up the goods for Sibyl, “what has be¬ 
come of Miss Townsend?” 

“Oh, haven’t you heard?” exclaimed 
Sibyl. “She’s been quite ill.” 


118 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 

“No, I hadn’t,” said Nancy, consider¬ 
ately. “I’m so sorry. What has been the 
trouble?” 

“Worry, chiefly, I guess,” and a sort of 
sigh seemed to accompany Sibyl’s words. 
“It was too bad she had such a dispute with 
her brother,” she continued, “and yet, they 
really didn’t seem to dispute, just to dis¬ 
agree, but they have both such old-fashioned, 
gentle natures that they consider it dis¬ 
graceful to dissent from the views of loved 
ones. Oh, well!” this time the sigh was un¬ 
mistakable, “I suppose even the most gentle 
can hardly expect to go through life with¬ 
out differences. I only hope they do not 
hold my daddy in any way responsible,” she 
said seriously. 

“Why, how could they?” faltered Nancy, 
in honest bewilderment. 

“Oh, of course they couldn’t,” replied 
Sibyl hastily, as if regretting her remark. 
“But you see, daddy and the old gentleman 
have been such close friends that Miss Town¬ 
send might fancy daddy influenced her 


THE BIG DAY 


119 


brother. But I must be running along” she 
added a little hurriedly. “I’m so glad to 
have met you, Nancy, and I hope your sale 
will be a tremendous success.” 

“It surely will be,” chimed in Ruth, while 
Isabel and Nancy joined in the good-byes. 

“Hasn’t she wonderful eyes!” was 
Nancy’s first remark following Sibyl’s de¬ 
parture. 

“I got the surprise of my life,” declared 
Ruth, “when I saw Sibyl Sanders saunter 
in. There, that sounds like a new song, 
doesn’t it? But you know, girls, she is al¬ 
most as mysterious as her dad, the way she 
comes and goes—” 

“But doesn’t anyone up and ask them 
where they live?” asked Nancy in evident 
astonishment. 

“Never get a chance,” chimed in Isabel. 
“If we were to go out now and follow her up 
the hill, I’ll venture to say we would get a 
good sample of the disappearing stunt—” 

“But we haven’t time, dears,” chirped 
Nancy. “Look! Here come three autos. 


120 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


Now, ladies, step lively,” and the way they 
stepped was lively enough to be called trot¬ 
ting. 

“Yes, sure enough,” Ruth agreed, “they 
are coming here, and they’re here!” 


CHAPTER X 

STILL THEY CAME 

Before the girls could pull their faces 
straight a young man dashed up the steps 
and was in the store. 

1 ‘Well, this is great!” he declared 
heartily. “I see by your window card you 
carry Mackinaw’s goods and I haven’t been 
able to get them nearer than the city.” He 
was addressing all three who stood together 
back of the counter like a trio in a comedy. 
The young man looked critically at the show 
goods in the show counter—the supply left 
by the travelling salesman. 

“Here they are, sure enough!” he ex¬ 
claimed. “Just give me a half dozen of 
those plugs, and of those dry flies, and a 
dozen of those bobbers—” 

Nancy set out the boxes and the customer 
helped himself. He knew exactly what he 
121 


122 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


wanted, and the girls marvelled at his quick 
selection of the fancy colored artificial min¬ 
nows, the little feather flies, used to decoy 
the poor fish, and the bobbers, of which 
article Nancy had as pretty a selec¬ 
tion as might have been in a really large 
shop. 

“ You don’t know what an accommodation 
this is,” went on the young man, putting 
down a twenty dollar bill to pay for his pur¬ 
chases. “No, don’t bother to put paper on 
the boxes,” he objected, as all three at¬ 
tempted to wrap the goods. “I’ll put them 
right in the car. You see, I’m at the fishing 
club over on the lake, and when we want 
supplies there we want them instantly,” he 
concluded. 

And he was gone before the surprised 
clerks had time to realize that the sale had 
almost cleared out all the fancy tackle, and 
there were coming in at the door two elderly 
gentlemen, who looked exactly as if they 
would want fancy flies. 

One of the gentlemen poked his head in 


STILL THEY CAME 


123 


the door so comically, the girls all giggled. 

“Well!” he exclaimed. “So it is a shop. 
Thought it might be a Sunday School fair 
and I’d get roped in,” he chuckled, stepping 
inside cautiously. “Sorry, but I didn’t 
come to buy. Can you direct me to Pro¬ 
fessor Sanders’ office?” he asked, while po¬ 
litely removing his hat. 

“His office? Why, he hasn’t any office 
that I know of,” faltered Nancy, surprised 
at the question. 

“He has messages sent to the ticket office 
at the station,” volunteered Euth. 

“Oh, I see,” replied the man, seeming to 
“see” more than the girls did. “Then, 
we’ll go over to the station—” 

So saying the man backed out of the door 
smiling pleasantly as he departed. 

“Well, I declare!” exclaimed Nancy. 
“Our Disappearing Dick is going to have 
callers. I wonder if he’ll perform for 
them?” 

“Those are important looking men,” Isa¬ 
bel commented. “Did you see their car?” 


124 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 

“Wasn't it fancy ?” agreed Ruth. “Per¬ 
haps Sibyl will get a ride home.” 

“I don’t think you folks can be very good 
detectives around here,” Nancy criticized, 
“or you would have found out what so many 
people mean by saying that Mr. Sanders dis¬ 
appears.” 

“Now, listen,” quoth Ruth, in a most con¬ 
fidential tone, “I don’t call myself sensa¬ 
tional, and in fact, people at Long Leigh 
generally have the name of minding their 
own business; but there is something mighty 
queer about Mr. Sanders.” She paused 
while Nancy waited for further explana¬ 
tion. “He does not live in the old gray 
house, for father’s men went through the 
entire place the other day, he’s in real-estate 
you know,” she explained, “and there 
wasn’t a thing to show that the old house 
had been opened since they inspected it 
last.” 

“Couldn’t he camp in the barn or some¬ 
where outside the house?’-’ queried Nancy. 


STILL THEY CAME 


125 


“No; the barn was locked up tight as tup¬ 
pence,” insisted Ruth. “But he seems to 
hang out somewhere on that hill, just the 
same,” she added. 

“I know!” exclaimed Nancy. “He goes 
up in a tree with the wires and springs,” 
and she sprang up and down without either. 
“Some day I’m going up there and I bet 
I’ll solve the mystery,” she promised 
gaily. 

“Let us know when you’re going, Nan,” 
suggested Ruth. “We wouldn’t want to 
have you swallowed up by—the fairies.” 

“Say,” whispered Isabel, her eyes set in 
what looked like alarm, “do you know, I 
saw a little woman come up and down our 
side steps a half dozen times this morn¬ 
ing—” 

“Oh!” and Nancy laughed merrily. 
“That would be little Miss Manners, the 
dressmaker who lives in the tiny bungalow 
under our window. You see, Mother 
wouldn’t really let us keep store without 


126 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 

some supervision. “She’s pretty particu¬ 
lar, and declares there is no telling who 
might pop in—” 

“And hold us up for our cash box—!” 
Ruth added so mirthfully as to suggest a 
good time in the danger. 

“Well, any how,” continued Nancy, 
“Mother insists that Miss Manners look in 
quite often to see that everything is all right. 
She’s as quiet as a mouse—” 

“I should say she is,” Isabel confirmed. 
“In fact, I didn’t want to frighten you or 
I should have told you someone was sneak¬ 
ing in,” she added, folding up a tape line as 
she spoke. 

“Oh, Miss Manners is so quaint, as Vera 
would say,” Ruth contributed, “that I think 
she ought to be a partner, if a silent partner, 
in the Whatnot Shop.” 

“Yes,” agreed Nancy, “it does seem as if 
this shop should belong to little old people 
like Miss Townsend, and I guess that’s why 
Miss Manners is so interested. You see, 


STILL THEY CAME 


127 


girls, I’m still a very poor housekeeper, and 
our maid, Anna, won’t be back until fall. 
After I get tired playing store, I suppose,” 
and she sighed heavily, “I’ll be expected to 
start in playing house.” 

“But if you run the shop as you have done 
this morning,” Isabel interposed, “don’t you 
suppose your mother will think you’re a real 
genius at business?” she inquired. 

“You can’t fool my mother on geniuses,” 
replied Nancy, who like her companions wa§ 
putting away the odds and ends of things 
that had been scattered in the morning’s ad¬ 
venture. “Mother is an expert, and she sort 
of knows—me.” This last was said in a 
way implying a very doubtful compliment 
for Nancy. “I’ve been almost a genius at 
art, for instance. When I was five years 
old I could draw a goose with my eyes 
shut.” 

“How about it when your eyes were 
open?” asked Ruth, quizzically. 

“It was usually a little fat pig, then,” 


128 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


Nancy admitted, amid an outburst of girl¬ 
ish laughter. 

“Nancy,” interrupted Isabel, i6 here’s the 
ice cream man.” 

“Ours,” declared Nancy. “Now we’ll 
whistle for Ted and his boys and shut up 
shop for lunch. Isabel, will you please open 
the side door? We’ll take a tray over to 
Miss Manners and then sit down and enjoy 
ourselves.” 

“Here’s Ted and his friends now,” an¬ 
nounced Ruth. “They seem to know it is 
ice cream time.” 

“That will save trouble,” Nancy re¬ 
marked. And presently the big sale was all 
but forgotten in preparations for the feast 
of ice cream, with other suitable summer 
lunch supplies. 

Isabel took an attractive tray over to solic¬ 
itous and attentive Miss Ada Manners, 
while Nancy and Ruth attempted to satisfy 
the demands of Ted and his ice cream lov¬ 
ing friends. The noon day was much 
warmer than the morning had indicated, and 


STILL THEY CAME 


129 


this coupled with the sale excitement, went 
far to make the little party a tremendous 
success, just as Mrs. Brandon had planned 
it to be. 


CHAPTER XI 

THE FAILURE 

The days were slipping by, and Nancy 
found herself entangled in a rather confused 
vacation. True, she had already reaped 
real benefit from the big sale and from the 
subsequent days’ sales in her shop, but was 
it really being a vacation ? 

It must be admitted that Nancy had a 
tendency to stubborness, but since that pe¬ 
culiarity very often marks the first stages of 
a strong character, her mother wisely al¬ 
lowed her to continue to try things out for 
herself. The Whatnot Shop was not prov¬ 
ing in any way a disappointment, but it was 
most certainly giving Nancy work, so that 
she was not free to come and go with the 
other girls, in spite of Miss Manners fre¬ 
quent and generous offers to “ Tend store” 
for her. 

A bright spot on her calendar not very far 

130 


THE FAILURE 


131 


off, was the coming of Mrs. Brandon’s vaca¬ 
tion. Soon she would be at home, free to do 
all the precious things a devoted mother 
plans to do in the little interval of freedom 
so long looked forward to and so quickly 
spent. 

“When you are home,” Nancy would con¬ 
tinually plan, “I’m going to do that,” refer¬ 
ring to any one of a number of things being 
postponed. 

Today it was raining; a sudden summer 
shower was drenching everything as if rain 
had never had such a good time before, and 
a charity sale, in which all the girls were in¬ 
terested, was to be held that afternoon. 
Everyone, including Nancy, expected to at¬ 
tend, and she with others had promised to 
donate a cake. 

But how it rained! And Nancy had 
planned to go into town to the fancy bakers 
to get her cake. Hour after hour she hoped 
the rain would cease, until it became too late 
for a telephone delivery, and still Nancy 
could not go out in the downpour. 


132 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


“If I could only bake it,” she reflected, 
as she once more gazed gloomily out of the 
windows at the dripping world. “It’s easy 
enough to bake a cake,” she told herself, 
“and, of course, I could follow the recipe in 
mother’s cook book.” 

Still Nancy had misgivings concerning 
such an experiment. A cake for a sale 
should be good, of that she was certain, and 
for that very reason she had previously de¬ 
cided to buy one at the French Pastry Shop. 

“Well,” she sighed, “I may as well try it. 
It is sure to clear up just when the girls are 
due to call for me, and I simply couldn’t go 
without a cake.” 

First locking the store, and making up 
her mind that no call, however insistent, 
would tempt her to leave her task, Nancy 
promptly set about baking her cake. It was 
no trouble to find the cook book, Mrs. Bran¬ 
don had found a small shelf suitable for 
that in the open pantry. Also, the required 
ingredients were all at hand, and the cream¬ 
ing of the butter and sugar, according to the 



Nancy promptly set about baking her cake 
















































































































































































































THE FAILURE 


133 


first rule, Nancy executed with something 
like skill, for she had strong young hands 
and the spoon in her grasp quickly beat the 
butter and sugar together in a perfectly 
smooth paste. 

Then she put the flour in the sieve. In 
doing this she made a slight mistake, for no 
pan nor plate had been placed under the 
sieve and consequently a pretty little layer 
of the sifted flour showered out upon her 
table before she could get a receptacle under 
the utensil. 

“I had better measure over again/’ Nancy 
decided, feeling that the uncertainty of 
guessing at the lost flour might spoil her 
cake. So this time she put in her baking 
powder, salt and flour, and sifted all into a 
little pudding pan. Separating the eggs, 
yolks from whites, was not quite so easily ac¬ 
complished, but even that was finally man¬ 
aged, and now Nancy knew it was time to 
light the gas oven. 

Next, three-fourths of a cup of milk was 
added to the creamed butter and sugar, the 


134 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 

egg yolks added to that and all well beaten. 
Then the flour was carefully turned in, while 
beating all together Nancy felt really elated 
at the prospect in sight. 

“I’m sure this will be fine,” she was con¬ 
gratulating herself, “ perhaps even better 
than a store cake. And I know how to make 
the maple icing—I’m glad I have done that 
much before, at any rate,” she admitted rue¬ 
fully. 

The soft yellow mixture did indeed look 
promising, but now came the time to fold 
in the whites of the eggs. 

“Fold in,” repeated Nancy, somewhat 
puzzled. How shall I fold it in?” 

She looked at the batter and she looked at 
the frothy egg whites. To fold that in 
would surely mean to spoil all the nice, 
white, snowy mound of froth. Nancy hated 
to do it, but she finally spilled it into the 
bowl full, and started to beat it all over 
again. The batter seemed rather thin and 
Nancy decided to add a little more flour. 
Just here was where her inexperience threat- 


THE FAILURE 


135 


ened disaster, but the trial so fascinated the 
little cook that she did a few other things not 
proposed by the recipe, but all of which 
seemed reasonable to her. 

The oven was now sizzling hot, and Nancy 
quickly turned her mixture into two tins, 
which she neglected to grease, and slipped 
them into the oven. With a sense of satis¬ 
faction she turned to and really cleared up 
all the utensils—something very commend¬ 
able indeed in Nancy Brandon. With 
watching the clock and getting Ted’s lunch 
set out on the little porch table, while she 
also managed somehow to start her own per¬ 
sonal preparations for the afternoon, Nancy 
was, as she would say, kept on the jump. 

But the cake didn’t burn, and she took it 
from the oven on the dot of thirty minutes. 

“It will have to cool, I suppose,” Nancy 
guessed, “and while it’s cooling I’ll make 
the icing. It looks pretty good but it has 
got a lot of holes in it,” was her rather 
skeptical criticism, as she inspected the two 
layers of golden pastry. But the cake, even 


136 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


after a thorough cooling which consumed 
more time than could be spared, would not 
leave the tins! 

Nancy tried a knife—that broke a great 
rough corner off. Then she got the pan¬ 
cake turner and slipped it under as well as 
she could, but alas! The thing actually 
splashed up in a regular explosion of 
crumbs! 

‘ 4 Ruined! ’’ groaned Nancy. ‘ ‘ I can never 
fix that!’ 9 

Her disappointment was cruel. To see a 
perfectly good and such a fragrant cake go 
to pieces when finished, after all the work of 
getting it that far was nothing short of a 
tragedy. 

Tears blinded Nancy Brandon. 

“I might have known ,’ 9 she sighed, “I 
just couldn’t have such good luck with 
cooking.” 

The rain was almost over. Ted would 
soon be in, but Nancy just couldn’t help 
crying. It was so hard not to succeed when 
she had been counting so especially on that 


THE FAILURE 


137 


afternoon’s fun. Perhaps she could get Ted 
to go to town for her after all. But upon 
serious consideration she decided against 
that plan. She simply wouldn’t go now 
under any circumstances. Her eyes were 
red and she wanted a good cry even more 
than the fun of the sale. In fact, she 
couldn’t help crying and she wasn’t going to 
try. 

When an hour later the girls called, Ted 
told them what was strictly true. Nancy 
was in bed with a sick headache and she 
couldn’t go. Carrying their messages of 
sympathy upstairs to Nancy, along with a 
plate full of broken cake and a glass of ice 
cold lemonade, Ted tried to cheer his dis¬ 
consolate sister, but even then she had not 
discovered that the whole trouble was 
merely her neglect of greasing those cake 
tins. The cook book didn’t direct so simple 
a thing as that and, of course, poor Nancy 
just hadn’t noticed that her mother did it. 
She was usually too concerned about the 
remnants of cake dough being left in the 


138 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 

bowl, to observe bow the batter was being 
put in the pans. 

“Does it ache hard?” asked Ted, sitting 
beside his sister and referring to her head. 

“Yes, it does, Ted, but this lemonade is 
splendid.” 

“I can make good lemonade,” Ted ad¬ 
mitted. “And your cake is swell, only it 
sticks awful. I got it out with the pie 
server,” he told Nancy simply. 

“Yes. I couldn’t get it to come off the 
pan at all. Well,” and Nancy moved to get 
up, “I suppose I won’t feel any worse down 
stairs. What color dress did Euth have 
on?” 

To the best of his limited ability Ted de¬ 
scribed the girls’ costumes and then, deter¬ 
mined to drive away Nancy’s blues, he 
started in to recite in detail his great ex¬ 
perience of that morning. 

“Now Nan,” he began, “you can say all 
you like, but Mr. Sanders does disappear. 
I saw him!” 

“You saw him disappear !” 


THE FAILURE 


139 


“Yes, sure as shootin’. We were all run¬ 
ning down the hill, trying to get to the sta¬ 
tion before that big shower, when I said to 
Tom, ‘there’s Mr. Sanders, cornin’ up.’ He 
said he saw him too, and we kept on runnin’, 
when I was just goin’ to shout hello, and 
true as I tell you, Nan, there wasn’t any Mr. 
Sanders anywhere in sight!” 

“Ted Brandon!” 

“Yep, that’s just what I’m telling you. 
We all saw him go, but no one saw where 
to.” 

And presently even the lost pleasure and 
the spoiled cake were soon forgotten in their 
discussion of Ted’s remarkable story. 


CHAPTER XII 

THE VIRTUE OF RESOLVE 

But something had happened to Nancy. 
The cake failure represented to her much 
more than a simple episode, for it had sud¬ 
denly summed up all the awful possibilities 
of untrained hands. It was well enough to 
make excuses, to claim business and even 
artistic talent, for Nancy could draw and 
color, and was among the best in her class 
as an art student, but the fact now bore 
down upon her with undisguised horror! 
She could not do what other girls could do. 
She could not even bake a cake. 

“And just as mother so often told me,” 
she reflected bitterly, “it is not at all a ques¬ 
tion of preference but of simple, civilized 
living. What I don’t do and should do 
someone else must do, and that’s anything 

140 


THE VIRTUE OF RESOLVE 141 

but fair play on my part,” Nancy sadly 
admitted. 

“Aren’t you going to open the store, 
Nan?” Ted asked her. “There’s been 
someone knocking a long time and now 
they’re going away—” 

“Oh, never mind,” she answered indif¬ 
ferently, “I’m going to get tea ready so 
mother won’t have to bother. She does it 
like an angel when I plead store business, 
but I guess, Ted, the old store—” 

“Isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,” Ted 
helped her out rather willingly, for he had 
not, at any time, shared her enthusiasm in 
the little business venture. 

Nancy sighed dramatically. She was 
feeling rather sorry for herself and that is 
always a symptom of wounded pride. It 
was the same day, in early evening, of the 
picnic and cake experience, and her crying 
spell still stirred its little moisture of hurt 
emotions. Ted couldn’t bear to see his sis¬ 
ter cry, ever, and he was now all attention 
and sympathetic interest. 


142 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


“I wish, Nan, you’d just sell out. The 
store would make a swell gym, and we 
scouts need a place just like that—” 

“Ted Brandon! Do you think I would 
quit just because a thing is hard! Why, I 
should think you would remember how hard 
mother works,” she declared, in a sudden 
outburst of virtue. “And the harder it is 
the more reason to—to do it,” she 
floundered. 

“Oh, yeah, sure,” agreed Ted amicably. 
“Of course that’s so. Want me to set 
table?” 

“Thanks, Ted, I wish you would. I’m 
going to try a cooked custard, I mean a top 
of the stove custard. If I can cool it by 
putting the dishes flat on the ice,” Nancy 
reasoned aloud. 

“But they’ll melt right through, if they’re 
hot, ’ ’ Ted reminded her. ‘ ‘ I know my taffy 
pan did—” 

“Well, perhaps I’d better not try it then, 
as it’s so late,” Nancy decided, relieved to 
find a genuine excuse. “Suppose we have 


THE VIRTUE OF RESOLVE 143 

toasted crackers with cheese on top ? 
Mother always likes that and that can’t go 
wrong.” 

Fortified with a new determination, 
Nancy went at her task, and in less time, 
much less time than she usually required, 
succeeded in preparing not only an ap¬ 
petizing but a really tempting meal. Ted 
arranged the crisp lettuce leaves while 
Nancy cut the tomatoes, which she “nested” 
in the lettuce, prettily. The toasted cheese- 
crackers were in the oven and as this was 
not only a favorite dish with the Brandons, 
but is also a favorite with many others, it 
might be well to know how Nancy prepared 
it. 

She buttered saltines, enough to cover 
the bottom of a flat pan, the pan usually 
used for “Johnnie Cake,” then, on top of 
the cracker layer, she showered, plentifully 
thick, grated cheese; another layer of crack¬ 
ers and another shower of cheese. Next, she 
wet the layers with just enough milk to 
moisten the crackers. The pan was then 


144 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 

allowed to stand long enough for the crack¬ 
ers to absorb the milk, after which the 
preparation was baked in a quick oven. A 
delicious brown cheese-cake was the result, 
and it “didn’t go wrong.” 

“I’m glad I can do that much, at any 
rate,” Nancy half-complained, half-praised. 
“And Ted, you have made the table look 
lovely. I shall be so sorry when the roses 
are gone—” 

“Say Sis,” broke in Ted abruptly, “you 
know I was telling you about how Mr. San¬ 
ders disappeared.” 

“Were you?” Nancy was polishing her 
water glasses. 

“Sure, I was. When you had the head¬ 
ache and was crying. Don’t you know?” 

“Oh, yes, I do remember,” admitted 
Nancy. “But it’s too foolish, Ted—” 

“Foolish nothing! I tell you I saw him 
go,” Ted declared in a voice that admitted 
of no argument. 

“How funny!” cried Nancy. “Do you 


THE VIRTUE OF RESOLVE 145 

really believe in that stuff, Ted?” she asked 
quizzically. 

“Oh, say!” Ted was too disgusted to at¬ 
tempt explanation. That any one should 
doubt his eyes was beyond his under¬ 
standing. 

“Well, I’ll tell you,” Nancy condescended. 
“I’m going to call on Miss Townsend soon, 
that is, mother and I are, because Miss 
Townsend has been sick, you know,” she 
elucidated. “Then, I’m just going to ask 
her straight all about that weird story.” 

“As if she’d tell,” scoffed the boy. 
“Why, her own dog never left her house 
since she’s been sick, if you want to know. 
What do you make out of that?” 

“Cute doggie,” replied Nancy, now shut¬ 
ting off the gas stove to await her mother’s 
coming. “And another thing, Ted, I wish 
you could see how that dog acts around this 
place.” 

“I’m just thinking that maybe Miss 
Townsend is acting sick just to get back 


146 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 

here,” hazarded Ted. “I hope mother 
won’t give in, if she is, for I like it here, 
don’t you, Nan?” 

“Love it! Here’s mother! Quick Ted, 
the ice water. There, let’s hide!” 

The joy of a thing well done was Nancy’s 
reward for her extra efforts. The little 
meal was indeed a credit to her, and that it 
gave her mother unmistakable pleasure was 
Nancy’s greatest satisfaction. 

“I am always sure that you can do it, little 
girl,” her mother told her, as they all three 
turned in to clear away the table things, 
“but I also know you have to find things 
out for yourself. How did you manage it 
all so nicely?” 

“Well, I didn’t mean to tell you,” Nancy 
sighed, “but I might just as well.” 

“Better,” chimed in Ted mischievously, 
as he scurried around to do his part in the 
clearing up ceremony. 

“All right,” Nancy agreed affably. “I 
had better tell you, Mother. You see, it was 
the day of the sale—the church sale the girls 


THE VIRTUE OF RESOLVE 147 

were all going to. And I expected to get 
my cake at the French Bakery.” 

“And you couldn’t on account of the 
rain,” Mrs. Brandon helped the recital 
along. 

“It never stopped for one half hour,” 
Nancy added. “So I tried, that is I just 
tried to make a cake.” 

She drew in her lips and puckered her 
pretty face into a wry misgiving expres¬ 
sion. Nancy was looking very pretty in her 
rose colored linen dress (the one her mother 
had finished off with peasant embroidery), 
and her dark eyes were agleam now with 
enthusiasm and interest. 

Frankly she told her mother the story of 
her spoiled cake, and how they all three 
laughed when the mother explained why it 
had failed—just because Nancy didn’t know 
enough to grease the tins! 

Ted, all this time, was casting suspicious 
glances first at Nancy then at his mother. 
He seemed to be enjoying a secret that even 
his glances were not imparting to the others. 


148 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 

“You may run along, Ted,” his mother 
told him, as she always excused him just a 
little earlier than she and Nancy were pre¬ 
pared to finish. “I guess you can call your 
part complete. Here dear, I’ll put the 
sweeper away. You run, I hear some code 
whistling at the side window.” 

“All right, Mother, but I can chase the 
sweeper in the pantry as I go,” Ted offered. 
“But I wanted to tell you.” He sidled up 
to his mother very confidentially, “I think 
Nancy’s good and sick of the store.” 

“Why Ted!” His mother showed com¬ 
plete surprise at the frank declaration. 
Nancy was not within hearing so Ted ven¬ 
tured further. 

“Yep,” he continued. “I’ll bet she 
chucks it up pretty soon, and if she does, 
Mother, could we fellers have it?” he 
pleaded. 

“You boys have it?” 

“Yeah; for a gym. Fine and dandy. 
We’ve got a lot of things to exercise with—” 
Nancy was back from the ice box now so 


THE VIRTUE OF RESOLVE 


149 


Ted could say no more. The next moment 
he darted off to the boys who were calling, 
his own vociferous answer shrilling the path 
he made as he rushed out. 

Nancy remained silent for some minutes 
and neither did her mother seem inclined to 
talk. Mrs. Brandon put the center piece on 
the table and Nancy straightened the win¬ 
dow shades, replaced the fruit dish on the 
little table near the cool window, and sud¬ 
denly remembered to wind the clock. 

“That’s Ted’s business, dear,” her mother 
reminded her. “You see, even a boy must 
get some training in these little household 
matters. He too lives in a house.” 

“Oh, yes,” agreed Nancy. “And isn’t it 
strange that I always remember his part 
while I so often forget my own?” 

“No, not strange,” her mother said gently. 
“Ted’s little schedule is new and novel to 
you, therefore interesting; yours is old and 
monotonous to you, therefore irksome.” 
Mrs. Brandon managed to get her arm af¬ 
fectionately over her daughter’s shoulder. 


150 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 

“But don’t be discouraged, dear. You may 
make a star housekeeper in the end,” she 
prophesied. 

“Oh dear. I’m afraid not, Mother,” and 
Nancy sighed heavily. “It seems to me I 
get tired of everything. I thought it would 
be wonderful to earn money,” she faltered, 
“and I suppose because I always liked to 
play store I thought it would be just as much 
fun to have a real store. But Mother,” and 
she snuggled against the sympathetic breast, 
“Mother, I do want to help you—” 

“And you have,” brightened Mrs. Bran¬ 
don. “You have no idea what miracles I 
have worked with your extra dollars, earned 
in that little store.” 

“Really, Mother?” 

“Yes, indeed. In fact I am thinking of 
taking a real vacation when my little two 
weeks come around. I had expected to do 
some extra work—” 

“In your vacation?” exclaimed Nancy. 
She had squatted her mother down in the 
arm chair and was herself resting on the 


THE VIRTUE OP RESOLVE 151 

side cushion. “Indeed, I should say not,” 
she scoffed, pouting prettily. 

“But if we buy this little summer place, 
dear, we must do a lot of certain things,” 
explained her mother vaguely. 

“Then I’m not going to get tired of the 
store,” determined Nancy, suddenly. 

“Yet Nannie, we might do very well to 
rent it,” suggested Mrs. Brandon. “A 
business place is worth something, you 
know.” 

“Bent it? To whom?” 

“I think it would cure Miss Townsend of 
her imaginary ills, to have a chance to come 
back—” 

“Oh, Mother, somehow I shouldn’t like 
to have her around,” faltered Nancy. 
“She’s sweet and quaint and all that,” con¬ 
ceded Nancy, “but she gives one the creeps. 
She sort of brings ghosts along with her 
when she comes here. And her dog! Why, 
he’d bark us all to death if we ever let him 
in to fight with the chimney place.” 

Mrs. Brandon laughed good-naturedly. 


152 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


“I’ve felt rather against considering the 
plan myself,’’ she admitted, “for as yon say, 
dear, we would feel like intruders with Miss 
Townsend established in the store. Well, 
we don’t have to think about it now, at any 
rate,” she decided. “Come along for a 
walk. I’m afraid you haven’t been out 
much today and that’s one thing that would 
really worry me, dear. I don’t want you to 
stay indoors to take care of the store,” her 
mother admonished. “We don’t pretend to 
carry real necessities that people might ex¬ 
pect to buy from us, and such stock as we 
do keep can be had at our convenience, as 
well as at theirs,” she finished definitely. 

“You are perfectly right, Mother,” 
Nancy answered emphatically. “And 
that’s one thing I don’t like about business. 
Everybody just thinks we are their serv¬ 
ants, and they even become rude when I tell 
them I haven’t got something they happen 
to want.” 

“Oh, yes, I know. But I wouldn’t worry 
about that. It all adds to the value of the 


THE VIRTUE OF RESOLVE 153 

lesson, yon know. Just be sure you are 
right, keep a cool head and a steady hand,” 
her mother laughed, 4 ‘then, let the other 
folks lose their patience if they are foolish 
enough to do so. But listen,” she paused 
attentively. “Here comes Miss Manners. 
And she seems to be in trouble. I’ll let her 
in.” 

The little lady was indeed in trouble for 
her face, small and somewhat pinched with 
threatening years, showed, as she entered 
the room, the unmistakable signs of weep¬ 
ing. 

“Oh dear,” she sighed brokenly, as 
Nancy pulled out the rocker for her, “I 
don’t know why I should come to you folks, 
for I’m sure,” she gulped back her inter¬ 
rupting sobs, “you must have troubles 
enough of your own. But I just had to talk 
to somebody—” 

“Talk away,” replied Nancy’s mother 
cheerily. “You know that is the best way 
to conquer one’s own troubles—to attack 
them with the troubles of someone else.” 


154 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 

“Maybe that’s so,” replied Miss Manners, 
brushing back a stray strand of her graying 
hair, “but I don’t just see how that is going 
to help me,” she faltered. 

“Tell us yours,” urged Nancy, “and then 
we will be better able to judge. ” Nancy sat 
back in her own chair, quite prepared now 
for a new chapter in the current events of 
Long Leigh. 


CHAPTER XIII 

BEHIND THE CLOUD 

Poor little Miss Manners! Hers had 
been a brave struggle, and as Nancy and her 
mother listened to the brokenly told story, 
they were easily ready to pardon the little 
lady’s show of emotion. 

So you were worried about your rent, 
principally?” Mrs. Brandon prompted her, 
kindly. 

“Yes. You see when I had to give up 
teaching on account of my health, I natu¬ 
rally turned to sewing,” she explained. 
“If I had only been a teacher in a public 
school, instead of a private school, I 
shouldn’t have been left without some 
means,” she complained, sorrowfully. 

Nancy was watching her in silent contem¬ 
plation. What a “sweet” little woman she 
was. The type always called little and 

155 


156 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


sometimes referred to as 61 sweet’’ because 
of that indefinable quality usually as¬ 
sociated with flowers. 

“You should not have worried so,” Mrs. 
Brandon assured her. “You have done a 
great deal for us—I never could have left 
the children here alone without feeling sure 
of your watchful kindness, you know.” 

“Now Mrs. Brandon,” said Miss Man¬ 
ners, in a rather dictatorial tone, “I have 
done nothing at all for you, and I want to 
assure you that Nancy and Ted require very 
—little—watching. ’ ’ 

“And I want to say,” spoke up Nancy, 
“that Miss Manners is the very nicest kind 
of a watch—a watch-woman,” she laughed. 
“We never hear or see her when, perhaps, 
we are noisy and—and rackety.” 

“I was afraid,” continued Miss Manners, 
without apparently heeding Nancy’s in¬ 
tended compliment, “that you might have 
been alarmed about the silly stories current 
around here. I mean, that especially about 
Mr. Sanders.” 


BEHIND THE CLOUD 


157 


“Yes,” said Mrs. Brandon encouragingly. 
“We have heard queer tales of his remark¬ 
able powers, but I can’t say they have 
alarmed us, Miss Manners.” 

“You have too much sense, I’m sure, for 
that,” she conceded. “But when one comes 
into a strange place and hears such stories, 
especially, when they have something to do 
with this little place—” 

“What could they have to do with 
this place?” Nancy questioned sharply. 
“Surely, he doesn’t do any disappearing 
around here. 1 ” 

Both the older folks laughed at that. 

“No, not exactly,” replied Miss Manners, 
“but you see, they say he influenced old Mr. 
Townsend until he spent his own and his 
sister’s money. But for my part, ’ ’ she hur¬ 
ried to add, “I could never believe that 
Mr. Sanders is anything but a perfectly up¬ 
right gentleman, and in no way responsible 
for the sad state of the Townsends’ busi¬ 
ness affairs.” 

“Then you don’t believe any of the stories 


158 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


about him, do you?” pressed Nancy. 
“Even Ted insists be saw him—fade away. ” 

The little woman, who seemed for the 
moment to have forgotten her troubles, 
looked from mother to daughter. It was so 
easy to interpret her thoughts. She was 
measuring Nancy’s courage. 

“Oh, you don’t need to be afraid of 
frightening me, Miss Manners,” Nancy as¬ 
sured her, “I’m only waiting for a chance to 
investigate the disappearing story. I’ve 
been so sure I could solve the mystery, that 
the girls will soon be calling me a boaster 
if I don’t start out to do something. What 
do you think, really, Miss Manners?” she 
pressed further. 

“Well, I hate to say so, but I can’t deny 
there is something curious about Mr. San¬ 
ders. I have often watched him around this 
house, when he and Mr. Townsend were 
such friends, and really,” she paused as if 
the admission were most distasteful to her, 
“I must say, the way those two men ran 
around the house—” 


BEHIND THE CLOUD 


159 


“Ran around! Those two old men!” 
cried Nancy, sitting np very straight in sud¬ 
den interest. 

“Yes, actually. I mean out of doors, of 
course,” Miss Manners explained. But 
they would first fuss around the outside 
chimney—you know the mason work runs to 
the ground on my side of this house, I mean 
the side next to my bungalow,” she empha¬ 
sized, “and there is an old-fashioned open¬ 
ing there. I suppose they used to take 
ashes out that way when they used the old 
grate fires.” 

“Oh, I know!” cried Nancy excitedly. 
“That’s why Miss Townsend’s dog made 
such a fuss over the fireplace in the store!” 

“Yes. They always had Tiny with them 
and the dog seemed as—crazy as the men,” 
Miss Manners remarked. 

“Don’t you suppose they were working at 
something?” Mrs. Brandon suggested, sen¬ 
sibly. 

“I did think so, of course; but Miss 
Townsend seemed to fear all sorts of things; 


160 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


yet she never would put her fears into sen¬ 
sible words,” Miss Manners told them 
curiously. 

“But how could that be connected with 
the foolish story of Mr. Sanders disappear¬ 
ing trick?” Mrs. Brandon wanted to know. 

“You see, it was all so unusual—I mean 
Mr. Sanders coming in here a stranger, and 
not living any place that folks could find 
out. Then, when he came down to Mr. 
Townsend here, got him all excited over 
some secret, got him to draw his money 
from the bank, and finally worked poor Miss 
Townsend into a state of nervous break¬ 
down, why, naturally the people around sus¬ 
pected almost everything—even to calling 
him a magician,” Miss Manners said, with 
a timid little smile. 

“I couldn’t give credence to any of it,” 
replied Mrs. Brandon decidedly. “I have 
met Mr. Sanders and share your opinion; 
that he is a perfect gentleman.” 

“Well, I’ve talked a long way from my 
own story haven’t I?” Miss Manners 


BEHIND THE CLOUD 


161 


sighed again, as she blinked against impel¬ 
ling thoughts. “You see, I have no friends 
at hand, and when I did so large an order of 
hand-made handkerchiefs—it took me 
months to do them—I depended upon that 
money for the summer. But the lady I 
made them for was called hurriedly abroad, 
on account of the sudden illness of her hus¬ 
band, and she never gave a thought to my 
precious twenty-five dollars,the little lady 
sighed ruefully. 

“She went away and owed you all that 
money!” Nancy exclaimed. “However 
could she have forgotten ?” 

“My dear child, we are all selfish when 
in trouble I suppose,” said Miss Manners 
charitably. “But I did fully expect to hear 
from her before this, and my next rent will 
be due in three days. I just came in to con¬ 
sult with you, not to borrow. I wondered 
if you knew of anything I could do—” 

“Certainly I do,” Nancy almost shouted. 
“You can start a little private school, a 
class in domestic science right in my—in 


162 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


our store,” she exclaimed. “I know at 
least a half dozen girls who will be glad to 
take a month’s course, and we’ll all pay 
you in advance. They always do in private 
schools!” 

The women both appeared speechless as 
Nancy rattled on. The idea was plainly 
fascinating. A domestic science class for 
the girls who hated housework, as Nancy 
did! How much better than idling an en¬ 
tire vacation! 

“Why, I just wonder—” 

“You needn’t wonder, Mother,” Nancy 
interrupted, “I tell you, it’s just perfectly 
wonderful, the idea, I mean. I’ll learn, I’ll 
learn, I’ll learn,” she chanted, “and then 
maybe I’ll find out a pleasant way—” 
“You are right, daughter,” spoke up Mrs. 
Brandon. “When you learn to do things 
as they should be done, you will find the 
work interesting. I have been sorry, Miss 
Manners, that my home has had to get along 
without a great deal of my time,” she turned 
to her visitor, “as you know I have had to 


BEHIND THE CLOUD 


163 


attend business and leave things to my 
maid. For, after all,” she said evenly, 
“only a mother can teach a daughter, and I 
have not been with Nancy long enough—” 

“You have too, Mumsey, and it’s all my 
very own fault,” Nancy confessed. “You 
often showed me how to do things, and you 
always told me I would have to pick things 
up when I threw them down, but I just 
didn’t care. I didn’t think it made any dif¬ 
ference.” Nancy was actually joyous in 
her confession, showing the positive relief 
one is apt to experience when the mind is 
suddenly freed from a heavy weight. 

“I really think Nancy’s idea is a good 
one,” said Mrs. Brandon. “There is no 
real reason why you should be tucked away 
next door to us when we need you in here, 
and we’ve got more room than we know 
what to do with.” 

“Oh, joy!” Nancy was positively dancing 
now. “We can have Manny in here with us 
all the time? May I call you Manny?” 
she asked. “It’s the cutest name.” 


164 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


“That’s queer,” replied the little lady, a 
soft color showing through her pale skin. 
“My girls at Raleigh always called me— 
Manny—” 

Then the plans were unfolded, and such 
plans as they were! 

“I feel like a fairy with a magic wand,” 
declared Nancy. “My little store is just 
like—a magic carpet or something.” 

“But I don’t want to impose—” Miss 
Manners began. 

“You’re a positive blessing,” Nancy in¬ 
sisted. “The only trouble is—we can’t 
learn sleuthing in your class and I’ve just 
got to find out Mr. Sanders’ secret before 
I’m many days older. I honestly think, 
Mother, the idea of that foolish story going 
around without anyone—running it down, 
as Ted would say, is getting on my nerves.” 

And every one enjoyed a good laugh at 
the idea of Nancy Brandon having nerves. 


CHAPTER XIV 

A PLEASANT SURPRISE 

It was all very exciting, but Nancy didn’t 
want to think that she was really glad to get 
rid of her precious Whatnot Shop. Ted 
openly declared “he told her so,” as boys 
will, but she politely drew his attention to 
the fact that she had fulfilled her contract, 
that she had earned money, quite a lot of 
money, in fact, and in now turning the shop 
over to Miss Manners she was following her 
mother’s advice. 

It was a few days later than that evening 
when she and her mother offered the use 
of the shop to the little seamstress, and 
now they were preparing to call on Miss 
Townsend. 

“Suppose she says she wants it back,” 
faltered Nancy, just patting her dark hair 
back into the desired soft little bumps. 

165 


166 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


“What would we say, Mother, if she just 
begged us to let her have it?” 

“Why dear, we could let her have a part 
of it, perhaps. She could come in and sell 
out what little stock you have, while Miss 
Manners is getting ready for her class.” 

“Oh, but,” pouted Nancy, “I would just 
hate to have her do that. If you ever saw 
the way she snooped around, Mother. And 
the way that dog acted!” Nancy’s manner 
was very decidedly one of opposition to 
Miss Townsend and her dog. 

“Well, come along, dear,” her mother 
urged, “we must not stay late. I have some 
notes to write up and I don’t want to lose 
sleep over them.” 

Whatever else bothered Nancy Brandon, 
an evening’s walk through the country 
roads of Long Leigh, in a beautiful summer 
twilight with her arm locked tightly in her 
mother’s, was balm enough to soothe and 
heal every slightest hurt and anxiety. 

“Mother-love,” she actually cooed, in the 


A PLEASANT SURPRISE 


167 


softest little voice she could command, “I 
just love it tonight, don’t you*?” 

“Perfect,” replied the happy mother, 
pressing lovingly upon the imprisoned arm. 
“And I am so glad, daughter-love, that you 
want to give up your business.” There was 
a humorous little twist given to that last 
word, for Nancy’s business was and had 
been something of a practical joke among 
the Brandons. 

“Let’s walk around the old house,” sug¬ 
gested Nancy, for they were at a fork in 
the road and needed to choose a way to 
Miss Townsend’s. “Then, maybe we will 
discover something about Mr. Sanders’ 
quarters. 1 ” 

But just as they were about to turn into 
the lane that led past the old stone house, 
Ted hailed them from the hilltop. 

He wanted to know where they were go¬ 
ing. He wanted to know if he could go 
along, and as they managed to make signs 
that gave at least a negative answer to this 


168 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


last request, they found themselves on the 
open road, walking directly away from the 
old stone house. 

“We won’t be long, Ted,” his mother as¬ 
sured him, as he reached them, “and you 
can, if you want to, go over to Norton Dun¬ 
can’s. We will give you a call as we come 
back, and then we will all go home together. 
The side door key is in the regular place 
though, if you would rather go home—” 

“Oh, no I wouldn’t. I’ll stay out ’til 
nine, and Nort and I’ll practice drill,” pro¬ 
claimed Ted. “We’re going to have a reg¬ 
ular test drill soon, and he’s my partner.” 

This being a satisfactory arrangement, 
Ted went to Nort’s while Nancy and her 
mother continued on to the little country 
hotel, where the Townsends had taken up 
their abode. 

“I do hope,” murmured Nancy, “that she 
won’t upset our plans. I just can’t see, 
Mother, why you bother about her at all,” 
she complained. 

“The place is ours for this summer to do 


A PLEASANT SURPRISE 169 

as we please with it, Nancy,’’ her mother 
replied, “but just the same, it is a little 
business courtesy to show to Miss Townsend. 
We have the option on the place, and I fully 
intend to buy it, but the shop was so dear to 
Miss Townsend’s heart, that I feel we ought 
to, at least, tell her what we plan to do for 
the month.” 

“You’re so, generous, Mother,” sighed 
Nancy. “I wish I were more like you.” 

Her mother smiled and squeezed the 
young hand that rested so confidently upon 
her own arm. 

“Don’t worry, dear,” she answered. 
“You know what dear grandma always said 
when you got into little troubles?” 

“Yes,” replied Nancy, “that my heart 
was in the right place if my head was a little 
shaky.” 

“Yes, that’s it. And don’t we miss 
grandma ? She might just as well come out 
here with us, but I was afraid of bringing 
her to the old-fashioned little house. Well, 
here we are at our hotel,” Mrs. Brandon 


170 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


broke off, as they came in sight of the long 
white building, with its unmistakable hotel 
piazza. 

In the row of rockers on the porch sat a 
row of men on one side and almost a row of 
women, or “ladies” on the other. Country 
folks, with a few city interlopers, composed 
the patronage of the Waterfall House, it 
was quite evident. 

Nancy and her mother smiled at the faces 
and half-greeted them, as they passed into 
the office, and after asking for Miss Town¬ 
send’s rooms, followed the boy along the 
red carpeted hall, and up a stairs carpeted 
with what once had been red. They jour¬ 
neyed on until they reached a little turn in 
the second hall. Before this their guide 
halted and pointed out a door that bore the 
number twenty-seven. 

Nancy’s heart would have jumped a little 
apprehensively had it been a less healthy 
young heart, but as it was, she merely kept 
very close to her mother until the boy 


A PLEASANT SURPRISE 


171 


turned on his heel and whistled a returning 
tune. 

“Maybe she’s sick in bed,” Nancy was 
thinking, just as the door was opened in 
response to her mother’s knock. 

“Why! Mrs. Brandon!” she heard a 
voice exclaim. “And Nancy!” as Miss 
Townsend bowed them in. “How glad I 
am to see you! Do come right in. Here, 
take this chair, it’s so comfortable. Nancy, 
sit by the window,” she was pushing a chair 
over to the girl, “and you can see the people 
passing. Well, I can’t tell you how glad I 
am to see you both.” 

Nancy was so surprised she almost ex¬ 
claimed aloud. There was the “sick” Miss 
Townsend fairly beaming, in, what surely 
looked like, very good health. The little 
dog was frisking around and Nancy had 
scarcely seated herself in the chair by the 
window when he pounced up on her lap, and 
after “kissing her” several times, finally 
subsided into a small, brown, woolly ball, 


172 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


cuddled into a little nest formed from the 
soft folds of Nancy’s blue voile skirt. 

“I’m so glad to see you are better, Miss 
Townsend,” Mrs. Brandon presently said. 
“You have been ill, we heard.” 

“Yes indeed, but I’m better now, really 
a new woman, you might say,” and Miss 
Townsend now seated herself comfortably 
on the small green sofa near them. “But 
it was just worry. Worry is a pretty bad 
ailment, isn’t it 9” she asked, smiling a con¬ 
tradiction to anything like worry affecting 
her just then. 

“You are real cozy here,” Mrs. Brandon 
ventured. 

“Yes, it’s quite pleasant, but I’ve just 
come back from a trip to the sea shore. I 
guess that is what helped me most,” con¬ 
ceded Miss Townsend. 

Like Nancy, Mrs. Brandon also, was much 
surprised at Miss Townsend’s exuberant 
spirits. It was perfectly plain that some 
good fortune had befallen the lady since she 
had paid that mournful visit to Nancy. 


A PLEASANT SURPRISE 


173 


“You see,” she began, as if in answer 
to their unmasked questions, “our business 
affairs are being all straightened out and 
Brother Elmer is getting back the money he 
loaned. Of course I didn’t understand, and 
it is one of those affairs a woman isn’t sup¬ 
posed to understand.” This was said in 
that sort of tone that conveys deep and mys¬ 
terious meaning. 

“I’m awfully glad of that,” Mrs. Brandon 
assured the woman in her brand new helio¬ 
trope one piece dress. It was quite mod¬ 
ish, indeed, and without question, very be¬ 
coming to Miss Townsend. 

“Oh, yes,” went on the hostess, “I was 
so worried for a long time. You see, I 
really couldn’t have faith in a business deal 
that I was not privileged to know the details 
of. I have been a business woman all my 
life,” she insisted, 44 and I’m not afraid to 
tackle any business deal,” at this she 
dangled her amethyst beads self-consciously. 
“But Elmer and Mr. Sanders!” Her hands 
went up protestingly. “They just used 


174 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


every dollar. Well—” she broke off sud¬ 
denly, “it’s all right now, so why should I 
fuss about it. You didn’t come to hear of 
my troubles, I’m sure.” 

At this point Mrs. Brandon divulged the 
real purpose of her visit. Nancy was hav¬ 
ing a great time with Tiny. He was awake 
now and evidently eager to show off. He 
stood up and begged, jumped down and 
“prayed” and otherwise disported himself 
most wonderfully. The distraction af¬ 
forded Nancy a welcome chance to sit aside 
and take little or no part in the elder’s con¬ 
versation, but she was, as Ted would have 
said, “all ears to it.” 

“Why, I think that’s a perfectly splen¬ 
did idea,” she heard Miss Townsend say, 
in reference to the plan of giving the store 
over to Miss Manners. “And I must say 
you are very generous, Mrs. Brandon,” 
she complimented. “As a matter of fact, 
fancy-store business is not what it used to 
be. More folks now take to the mail order 
plan, especially in winter. Why, there 


A PLEASANT SURPRISE 175 

were months when I didn’t see the color of 
a 6 green back’ in that place,” she admitted. 
“Yet, I couldn’t help loving the old place. 
I had been in it so long,” she concluded 
earnestly. 

“I met Mr. Sanders’ daughter, Miss 
Townsend,” Nancy spoke up, determined to 
bring up that subject, “and I think she’s 
a perfectly splendid girl.” 

“Isn’t she though! But she couldn’t 
help but be smart with such a father.” 
This last little speech was indeed a compli¬ 
ment to the absent Mr. Sanders. 

“But where does he live?” demanded 
Nancy, without any attempt to cloak her 
question with indifference 

“Live? Why, my dear child, he lives 
here! Just moved in, and I do declare, the 
man needs some comfort after all he’s been 
through. If Elmer comes in before you go 
I’ll have him bring Mr. Sanders in. We 
are all the best of friends now,” declared 
the incomprehensible little woman on the 
green velour sofa. 


174 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


every dollar. Well—” she broke off sud¬ 
denly, “it’s all right now, so why should I 
fuss about it. You didn’t come to hear of 
my troubles, I’m sure.” 

At this point Mrs. Brandon divulged the 
real purpose of her visit. Nancy was hav¬ 
ing a great time with Tiny. He was awake 
now and evidently eager to show off. He 
stood up and begged, jumped down and 
“prayed” and otherwise disported himself 
most wonderfully. The distraction af¬ 
forded Nancy a welcome chance to sit aside 
and take little or no part in the elder’s con¬ 
versation, but she was, as Ted would have 
said, “all ears to it.” 

“Why, I think that’s a perfectly splen¬ 
did idea,” she heard Miss Townsend say, 
in reference to the plan of giving the store 
over to Miss Manners. “And I must say 
you are very generous, Mrs. Brandon,” 
she complimented. “As a matter of fact, 
fancy-store business is not what it used to 
be. More folks now take to the mail order 
plan, especially in winter. Why, there 


A PLEASANT SURPRISE 175 

were months when I didn’t see the color of 
a ‘green back’ in that place,” she admitted. 
“Yet, I couldn’t help loving the old place. 
I had been in it so long,” she concluded 
earnestly. 

“I met Mr. Sanders’ daughter, Miss 
Townsend,” Nancy spoke up, determined to 
bring up that subject, “and I think she’s 
a perfectly splendid girl.” 

“Isn’t she though! But she couldn’t 
help but be smart with such a father.” 
This last little speech was indeed a compli¬ 
ment to the absent Mr. Sanders. 

“But where does he live?” demanded 
Nancy, without any attempt to cloak her 
question with indifference 

“Live? Why, my dear child, he lives 
here! Just moved in, and I do declare, the 
man needs some comfort after all he’s been 
through. If Elmer comes in before you go 
I’ll have him bring Mr. Sanders in. We 
are all the best of friends now,” declared 
the incomprehensible little woman on the 
green velour sofa. 


178 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


choose pie. I want my picture ‘took’ curl¬ 
ing the edge of a lemon meringue,” and 
she executed a few very ‘curly’ steps to 
illustrate. 

There was no denying it Nancy was 
happy on these the first days of her real va¬ 
cation. It had been splendid, of course, to 
have twenty-five dollars of her very own to 
offer to advance Miss Manners, to clear up 
the rent worry, but the store had not been 
all fun, she was willing to admit that. 

“And do you know, girls,” Nancy con¬ 
fided, “we, mother and I, had some doubts 
about the way Miss Townsend would take 
the news? Do sit down, Belle,” she broke 
off. “How can I tell a story while you’re 
doing hand-springs?” 

“These are flip-flaps,” insisted Isabel. 
“Just watch this one.” 

She was leaning with both hands on a long 
low bench, and the “flip” consisted of a vio¬ 
lent spring of both feet from the ground. 
After bringing the feet down again with the 
unavoidable jerk, she performed the “flop” 


TALKING IT OYER 


179 


by pivoting around until she sat on the 
bench and stuck both her feet out straight 
in front of her. 

“It’s very pretty,” commented Nancy. 
“But if you want to hear my story you 
have got to flop. I insist upon a sitting 
audience.” 

This demand restored comparative quiet 
and Nancy continued with her narrative. 

“I was telling you about Miss Town¬ 
send,” she went on. “You just should see 
that lady. She’s all ‘set up.’ We under¬ 
stood she was a nervous wreck—” 

“She was,” interrupted Ruth, “but I 
heard mother say her brother’s busi¬ 
ness affairs are being mysteriously ad¬ 
justed. Maybe that’s why she has become 
rejuvenated.” 

“Yes, that’s exactly it,” snapped Nancy. 
“And how the great, grand trick worked 
is one of the stories we have missed. I 
never saw such a place as Long Leigh for 
floating stories that no one can explain. 
Miss Townsend talked all around her good 


180 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 

luck, but never touched it. Of course, I 
couldn’t be so rude—” 

“Of course you couldn’t,” mocked Isabel. 

“Just the same,” retorted Nancy, “I did 
ask right out straight, without hint or apol¬ 
ogy, where—Mr. Sanders lived.” 

“And you got snubbed for your pains,” 
flung in Ruth. 

“Nothing of the kind, I became informed 
for my pains,” asserted Nancy. 

“Land sakes tell us!” pleaded Isabel. 
“First thing you know I’ll hear our car, 
and miss the—mystery.” 

“Well,” began Nancy, deliberately and 
provokingly, “I asked her: 1 Where does 
Mr. Sanders live V And just as I was gulp¬ 
ing hard to control my emoting emotions, 
Miss Townsend shook her necklace like a 
dinner bell, and said softly—” 

Nancy paused. The girls were threaten¬ 
ing to throw her over the bench into the 
flower bed but she seemed about ready 
to divulge the secret, so presently they 
desisted. 


TALKING IT OVER 


181 


“Well,” she said, “Miss Townsend an¬ 
swered, ‘Mr. Sanders lives right here in this 
hotel. He moved in yesterday and the poor 
man needed the change after all he’s been 
through.’ Now girls,” pouted Nancy, 
“did you ever see anything as mean as that? 
Just when I’m free to dig up the wild and 
woolly mystery, our hero goes and rents a 
room in the Waterfall House,” and she af¬ 
fected a pose intended to excite pity, but in 
reality causing mirth. 

“I see it all!” cried Isabel, jumping up on 
the bench and laying a sprawled hand over 
the heart location. “All, girls, all.” Her 
voice was droning like a school boy reciting 
the Charge of the Light Brigade. “What 
happened was this!” 

“This!” interrupted Ruth, pinching Isa¬ 
bel’s ankles until she literally fell from her 
perch. 

‘ ‘ Whow! ’ ’ yelled Isabel. “ Can’t one elo- 
cute without being plucked by cruel hands ? 
I tell you, girls, we have lost a lot of fun in 
not keeping up with our little brothers.” 


182 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


This was said in a very different and quite 
serious tone. “If you were to ask Ted, 
Nancy, very confidentially, what is or was 
the secret of the hidden treasure place, I’m 
almost sure he would tell you. He knows!” 
she declared loudly, “and so does my 
brother Gerard know, but he won’t tell 
me.” 

“Then it is or was a question of hiding 
a treasure,” reflected Nancy. “I’m so 
sorry it is only that. I perfectly hate treas¬ 
ure mysteries, they’re so horribly common. 
I had in mind some sort of great, grand, 
spooky, now-you-see-me and now-you-don’t 
trick. That would have been heaps more 
fun than just the old hidden treasure busi¬ 
ness. Well, at any rate, we seem to have 
missed it, for Mr. Sanders is really living at 
the hotel,” she wound up finally. 

“Is that any reason why we shouldn’t 
find out the secret?” demanded Ruth. “It 
seems to me we would be better able to do so, 
now that every one else has suddenly grown 
rich, and there’s no more danger of getting 


TALKING IT OYER 


183 


folks into trouble by prying into their busi¬ 
ness. I just wish Sibyl Sanders would 
eome up again. I fancy she would be just 
tickled to tell us the whole thing,’’ declared 
Ruth. 

“I must trot along,” Nancy suddenly an¬ 
nounced. “And girls, please don’t forget 
about the first lesson in domestic science, to 
be held at the residence of—” 

A loud and insistent honking of a motor 
horn interrupted Nancy’s flattering an¬ 
nouncement, and presently all three girls 
were scampering down to the roadside to 
pile into Gerard’s Duryea car, for Isabel’s 
brother was taking them for a ride into 
town, ostensibly to do some important fam¬ 
ily errands, but really to have one of those 
unplanned jolly times that go to make up 
the happy summer time. 

“I must be back by five,” warned Nancy. 
But her companions only pushed her back 
further in the over crowded car-seat as they 
sailed along. 


CHAPTER XVI 

JUST FISHING 

Some days later the Whatnot Shop was 
being dismantled, that is the shelves were 
being treated to a great clearing off, and the 
old-fashioned glass cases were being lined 
with white oilcloth, preparatory to Miss 
Manners’ Domestic Science Class storing 
their samples of food therein. 

Gradually Nancy’s sense of honor was 
coming back into its own, for not only her 
mother but also her girl friends were con¬ 
stantly reassuring her. 

“There’s nothing small nor frivolous 
about changing one’s mind for the better,” 
they told her. “In fact,” said the mother, 
“that one is willing to do so, is very often 
a mark of progress. If we didn’t change 
our minds how could we grow wiser?” 

“But I thought I’d just love business,” 
Nancy complained. “I was crazy to keep 

184 


JUST FISHING 


185 


store and now I’m crazy to start something 
else.” 

6 ‘Which is perfectly normal and entirely 
reasonable for any healthy young girl,” her 
mother insisted. “Can you imagine girls 
being as staid and as old fashioned as their 
mothers?” 

“Moth-thur!” Nancy sort of moaned, “If 
ever I could be as new fashioned as my 
mother I shouldn’t mind how old nor how 
young I might be. And you are a love not 
to scold me. I know you are glad to see 
Manny so happy setting-up her school, and 
I know you will be better satisfied to have 
her there, facing the fierce public, than al¬ 
lowing me to do so. Not that I had 
any trouble with the dear public,” Nancy 
mocked. “And not that Brother Ted 
wasn’t always within a few miles call if I 
needed him. But, at any rate, Mums, I did 
make some real money, didn’t I?” she 
cooed, quite birdlike for Nancy. 

A clean little, yellow bankbook was of¬ 
fered for evidence by Mrs. Brandon at this 


186 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


question, for being a business woman, she 
knew the value of personal interest in every 
part of a business undertaking, and so, 
early in the experiment, she had brought 
Nancy into the City Bank and there at¬ 
tended to the formalities of opening her 
bank account. 

“Mother, you keep the book, please,” 
Nancy begged just now, as Mrs. Brandon 
offered it to her. “I know I ought to be 
very careful and not forget where I put 
things, but somehow I do. And I would 
hate to lose that precious book,” she mur¬ 
mured, touching her mother’s cheek with 
her lips as she made the appeal. 

“Very well, daughter,” Mrs. Brandon 
conceded, “but you simply must learn to re¬ 
member, and the way to do that is think of 
a thing as you do it,” she advised. 

Nancy was, however, already improving 
in such matters. Being obliged to find 
things for herself, instead of calling out to 
Anna, the maid, as she had been in the habit 


JUST FISHING 


187 


of doing, was teaching a lesson that words 
had never been able to convey to her. 

It now lacked but three days of the open¬ 
ing of the class, and in these days Nancy 
and Ted were planning to have a great time 
fishing, exploring, and hunting. By “ hunt¬ 
ing’ ’ they meant looking for Indian relics 
along the river bank, for Ted insisted there 
really were such articles to be found there, 
if one were only patient enough in the 
search. 

This was the day set for fishing, and Ted 
was just now coming up to the back door 
with a tin can slung on a string, and that, in 
turn, was slung over his shoulder on a pole. 

‘ ‘ Got lots of them! ’ ’ he called out. ‘ 1 Nice 
fat ones, too. We can catch big fish with 
such worms as these,” and he set down the 
outfit to display his freshly dug bait. 

“Well, I’m not going to put them on the 
hook,” protested Nancy. “I don’t mind 
handling the slippery little things, but I 
can’t murder them. You’ll have to bait my 


188 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 

hook, Ted, if you want me to go,” she 
insisted. 

“Oh, all right,” growled Ted, merely pre¬ 
tending to protest, but really just showing 
his boyish contempt for such girlish whims. 
“Ill put them on for you. But do hurry, 
Nan,” he urged. “This is a dandy morn¬ 
ing to fish. Hardly any sun at all.” 

Calling good-bye to Miss Manners, who, 
even, this early, was at work in the store, 
Nancy was soon ready to start off with her 
brother on the fishing trip. She was clad 
in her oldest gingham, and wore her most 
battered big straw hat, nevertheless she 
looked quite picturesque, if not really 
pretty even in this rough attire; for Nancy 
was ever a striking looking girl. 

“Think we ought to take your old express 
wagon, Ted?” she asked, jokingly. 

“What for?” demanded the boy in 
surprise. 

“To carry them home in,” laughed 
Nancy. But even then Ted didn’t see the 
joke. 


JUST FISHING 


m 


Presently they were trudging along the 
heavily shaded road that wound in and out 
around Bird’s Woods until it would stretch 
along side Oak’s Pond, where the fishing 
was to be done. 

“It’s fine to have you come, Nan,” re¬ 
marked the boy, wagging his bare head and 
slapping his fish bag against his bare legs. 
Ted was wearing old clothes himself, and 
his trousers had not been trimmed any too 
evenly, for one leg ended above the knee 
and the other leg ended below the other knee. 
But he looked about right as a fisher- 
boy, his cheeks well tanned, his brown 
eyes sparkling and his browner hair doing 
pretty much as it pleased all over his 
head. 

“I’m mighty glad to come, Ted,” Nancy 
was saying in reply to his gentle little com¬ 
pliment. “It is great to be off all by our¬ 
selves, although, of course, I have good 
enough times with the girls,” she amended, 
loyally. 

“Me too / 1 added Ted, “I have lots of 


190 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


sport with the fellows but this is better;” 
he concluded, as Ted would. 

Arrived at a spot where the pond dug 
into a soft green bank, rounding into a 
beautiful semi-circular basin, brother and 
sister there camped. Ted insisted that 
Nancy take the choicest seat, a smooth spot 
on the big tree that must have been felled 
years before, and which had found comfort¬ 
able quarters on the edge of the jolly little 
stream. Sympathetic ferns stretched their 
soft green fronds along the sides of the 
naked wood, as if they wanted to supply 
the fallen tree with some of the verdure of 
which it had been cruelly bereft, and even 
a gay, flowering swamp lily, that wonderful 
flaming flower that holds its chalice above 
all other wood blooms, bent just a little to¬ 
ward the one branch of that tree that still 
clung to the parent trunk. 

Nancy squatted down expectantly. Ted 
had baited her hook and she was now cast¬ 
ing out her line in the smooth, mysterious 
stream, clear enough on the surface, but 


JUST FISHING 


191 


darker than night beneath. She had re¬ 
moved her “sneaks” and stockings, so 
that she might enjoy the freedom of dip¬ 
ping her toes into the little ripples that 
played around the log. 

“I don’t care whether I catch anything 
or not,” she remarked, “it’s lovely just to 
sit here and fish.” 

“ We ’ll catch, all right,” Ted assured her. 
“This is a great place for fish—regular nest 
of them in under these rocks.” He shifted 
a little on his perch, which was on a live 
tree that leaned out of the stream. 

Presently Nancy developed a song from 
the tune she had been humming: 

6 6 Singing eyly-eely-ho! Eyly-eely-ho! ’ ’ 

“Got to keep quiet when you fish,” Ted 
interrupted her. 

“All right,” agreed Nancy affably. 
“But that tune has been simmering all day 
and I just had to let it light up. Say Ted,” 
she began all over again, “did you hear 
about your friend, Mr. Sanders, getting 
rich?” 


192 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 

“Kick? I’m glad of it. He’s all right,” 
the boy declared, flipping his line to a new 
spot. 

“Yep-py, rich,” Nancy repeated. “He’s 
living at the hotel.” 

“Oh, I knew that,” scoffed the boy, airily. 

“Did yon? Then why didn’t you tell 
me?” 

“Secret,” snapped Ted, shutting his lips 
with a snap that even a venturesome fish 
might have heard. 

“And the Townsends—they are quite 
prosperous too,” Nancy pressed further. 

“Ye-ah.” Ted was not encouraging the 
confidence. 

For a few moments neither of them spoke 
again. Then Nancy’s line began to draw, 
to pull out into a straight line. 

“Easy!” whispered Ted, “You’ve got a 
bite! Don’t yank it. Wait until he’s on, 
good and tight!” 

They waited, breathless. Then Ted, the 
experienced, gave the signal, and Nancy, 
the amateur, drew very gently on her pole. 


JUST FISHING 


193 


Up, up, but still under water, until suddenly 
the water surface freed the capture, and 
something black, shiny, snaky, dangled vio¬ 
lently from the upheld line! 

“Oh, Ted, quick! It’s a snake! Look a 
snake!” cried Nancy, getting to her feet 
finally, after slipping several times on the 
smooth log. 

“Look out,” yelled Ted, for the black 
slimy thing dangling on Nancy’s line 
seemed to be making directly for her face, 
as it swung back and forth and darted vio¬ 
lently toward the shore. 

“Oh-h-h-h-h!” Nancy screamed. “He’s 
going for—” But she was taking no fur¬ 
ther chances, instead, she flung her pole, 
line and hook and catch, as far from her as 
a single fling could send it. The pole floated 
contentedly but the slimy thing was again 
hidden in its beloved waters, although it 
must have still been impaled upon the tor¬ 
tuous hook. 

Ted looked a moment at the lost outfit. 

“Nancy,” he said gloomily. “You’re 


194 NANCY BEANDON: ENTHUSIAST 

crazy. That was a fine, fat eel, and they’re 
hard to catch that way. And look at—your 
—pole.” 

“I’ll get it,” decided the surprised girl, 
instantly slipping down from the log and 
leaning out over the stream. 

“Don’t!” yelled Ted. But the warning 
was given too late, for as Nancy stepped on 
what seemed to be grass, she found herself 
thrust into the water, deep enough to 
frighten her of something worse than a 
snake. 

“Oh!” she yelled again. “I’ve got to 
swim out, I’ll smother in the bog if—I— 
don’t.” And so saying she flung her body 
free from the deep marsh-grass, and struck 
out in an emergency stroke toward the open 
stream. 

“Go up to the cove!” Ted yelled. “Just 
around that pine tree! I’ll meet you 
there!” 

The light clothing she wore was not much 
more cumbersome than some bathing suits 
are often found to be, so that Nancy, a cap- 


JUST FISHING 


195 


able swimmer, was now pulling surely to¬ 
ward the cove, while Ted was racing, as best 
he could in the heavy undergrowth to meet 
her as she would land. 

But just as Nancy turned in to a clear 
little corner to make her landing, she heard 
a muffled call. 

“Help! Help!” came the indistinct cry. 

Ted was abreast of her and he too heard 
the call. 

“It’s over in the sand dunes,” he yelled, 
as Nancy stepped ashore and shook some 
of the heavy water from her clothing. 
“Quick, Nancy, the fellows went to play In¬ 
dian there!” 


CHAPTER XVII 

THE CAVE-IN 

Theke was no time to think of wet gar¬ 
ments as Nancy raced after Ted toward the 
sand dunes. 

‘ 6 Quick,’ ’ he urged. “They’re the little 
fellows, Billy and Jack, and they must be 
under the sand.” 

Just beyond the trees and undergrowth 
that surrounds Oak’s Pond, a stretch of 
sand hills offered the youngsters an ideal 
playground. A few scrubby pines man¬ 
aged to draw from the dry soil enough vital¬ 
ity for a very much impoverished growth, 
and it was from the direction of the trees 
that the feeble call was now heard, at pro¬ 
tracted intervals. 

6 i There j n pointed out Ted. “ There’s the 
shack. They must be in a cave-in near it.” 

His surmise proved correct, for quickly 

196 


THE CAVE-IN 


197 


as brother and sister could reach the spot, 
they found every evidence of a cave-in and a 
sand deluge. 

4 ‘We’re here,” Ted called. “That you 
Billy?” 

“Oh, yeah,” came a pitiful little squeak. 
“'We ’re smoth-rin ’ to death. Quick—please 
—quick.” 

“There’s a board,” Ted ordered, at once 
taking charge of the rescue. “You can dig 
with that, Nan. I’ll dig with my hands.” 

Exactly like a very eager dog that digs 
with all fours when he wants to get in or out 
of a pit, Ted went to work. The light sand 
flew in clouds as he pawed and kicked, so 
that compared with his efforts Nancy’s 
board-shovelling seemed provokingly slow. 

“Oh, this is no good!” she finally burst 
out. “I can do that, too,” and without a 
thought but for the rescue, Nancy dropped 
to the position Ted was working in, and was 
soon digging and kicking until her clouds 
of sand rivalled his. 

“Oh! Oh!” came repeated calls and 


198 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 

groans. “We—can’t—breathe. Move the 
hoard! It’s pressing—” 

“We’re coming. We’re coming,” Nancy 
called back. “Don’t get frightened; you 
can’t smother now.” 

But it was not easy to reach the impris¬ 
oned youngsters, for a collapsed sand hill is 
as slippery to control as a rushing water 
fall. Every time the rescuers thought them¬ 
selves within reach of a board, an avalanche 
of sand would tumble upon it and bury the 
end they tried to grasp. 

At last Nancy grabbed hold of a big stick 
that protruded from the hill. 

11 Here Ted, ’ ’ she called. ‘ 6 Get this! It’s 
under a board—” 

Raising the stick carefully they did, at 
last, lay hold of one of the collapsed boards, 
the “roof” under which the youngsters had 
been caught. 

“Care-ful,” warned Ted. “Raise it! 
Don’t pull it out!” 

It was heavy, for sand pressed itself into 
great weight, in spite of its infinitesimal 


THE CAVE-IN 


199 


atoms. At last the rescuers were able, with 
care and skill, to raise the board, then an¬ 
other, until finally the bare feet of two small 
badly frightened hoys, led directly to the 
entire persons of the same little victims. 

“Oh my! Mercy me!” gasped Nancy. 
“They do look awful, Ted! Quick let’s 
get them water!” 

“Jack is the worst,” replied her brother. 
“Nan, see if your skirt is wet yet. You 
could squeeze a little water on his face—” 

The garment that had been dripping a few 
minutes before was still damp enough to 
permit of being “squeezed,” and standing 
over the pale face of little Jack Baker, 
Nancy managed to extract some drops at 
least, to coax back life into the almost un¬ 
conscious boy. 

Billy dragged himself out, although he 
was barely able to do so, and as quickly as 
little Jack showed signs of life, Ted and 
Nancy between them carried him down to the 
water’s edge. 

They were just about to bathe his face 


200 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


and hands when a canoe drifted into sight 
around the cove. 

“Mr. Sanders!” called Ted. “There’s 
Mr. Sanders,” he repeated, and his voice 
was reaching the occupant of the canoe, for 
the bark was now headed directly for land. 

First aid and other common sense treat¬ 
ment was soon being administered to both 
Billy and Jack by Mr. Sanders, Ted and 
Nancy, and when the cave-in victims were 
finally entirely resuscitated, it was decided 
that Mr. Sanders should carry them up 
stream in his boat, and so enable them to 
easily reach their homes, at the head of the 
pond. 

“You’ve been having some experience this 
morning,” the man remarked to Nancy as 
he waited for the boys to climb in the big 
long boat. “Can’t I give you and Ted a 
lift too? There’s room enough if every¬ 
body obeys canoe rules,” he said pleasantly. 

“Oh, that would be fine, 1 ” Ted replied, 
while Nancy was thinking of what to say. 


THE CAYE-IN 


201 


“Sis fell in the pond after her fishing 
tackle,’’ Ted added. “That was onr first 
adventure.” 

“That must be what I picked up,” inter¬ 
rupted Mr. Sanders pointing out Nancy’s 
pole with the cord wound around it, lying 
in the bottom of the boat. 

“Yes, that’s mine,” admitted Nancy, 
“and I’m glad to get it hack for it was a 
special pole—one I got for a premium from 
a Boston store,” she explained. 

“Well, pile in,” ordered Mr. Sanders, 
“and you little ‘uns’ had best not frighten 
your folks with the cave-in story,” he 
warned. “Better to he careful next time,” 
he finished laughingly. 

When all were securely ensconced in the 
long, graceful bark, Nancy was given the 
extra paddle and allowed to ply it alongside 
Mr. Sanders. In the joy of that unusual 
privilege, (for she was seldom allowed in a 
canoe,) the accidents were quickly lost 
thought of, even Jack and Billy venturing to 


202 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 

trail their fingers in the stream, while Ted 
sitting in the stern took chances on throw¬ 
ing out his line now and then just for the 
fun of feeling it pull through the quiet 
waters. 

As they sailed along, conversation was 
rather scattered, consisting mainly of 
snatches of questions and answers between 
Nancy and Mr. Sanders. The two little 
boys had scarcely spoken since their rescue, 
and now within sight of home, they were 
just beginning to assume normal courage. 

Suddenly Nancy started to titter. There 
was no apparent cause for her change of 
mood, but the more she bit her lip, looked 
out toward shore, bent her head toward her 
paddle and otherwise strove to divert her¬ 
self, the more the titter gathered and broke 
into a laugh, over her helpless features. 

“Funny, isn’t it?” remarked Mr. Sanders 
drolly. 

“Silly, but I just can’t help laughing,” 
she admitted. “It’s at the idea—” 

“I wonder if I couldn’t guess,” inter- 


THE CAVE-IN 


203 


rupted the man with the strong brown arms. 
“It’s about me, isn’t it?” 

“Yes,” admitted Nancy, slowly. 

“And about—about my supposed magic 
powers.” He stopped and enjoyed a light 
laugh himself. “Wouldn’t it be tragic if I 
should disappear just now?” he said so sud¬ 
denly, that Nancy jerked her paddle out of 
of the water and stared at him with a sort 
of guilty flush. 

“The idea—” she faltered. 

“Ha, ha, ha!” roared the big man swing¬ 
ing toward the shore where Jack and Billy 
were to land. “That’s a great story, isn’t 
it? But I’ll tell you,” he lowered his voice 
in a tone of confidence, “I am altogether to 
blame for that fantastic yarn, but some¬ 
times we have to let folks guess even if they 
do make—spooks out of us.” He laughed 
again and even the little boys were now be¬ 
ing tempted to join in. “But I want to 
promise you and your brother this, Nancy,” 
he said seriously. “You shall be among the 
first to know the answer to the riddle of my 


204 NANCY BKANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


—magic disappearance around the gray 
stone house.’- 

“Thank you,” Nancy managed to say, as 
Ted caught a strong little branch on shore, 
and helped land the canoe. 


CHAPTER XVIII 

INTRODUCING NERO 

It did not seem possible that Manny’s 
school had been successfully opened two 
weeks ago! That the girls in her class, at 
first numbering eight now counted fourteen, 
each paying five dollars for the month’s 
training in domestic science, with lessons 
three mornings a week. Fourteen pupils at 
five dollars each and every single one paid in 
advance, while Nancy was acting as class 
president and Ruth as class secretary; these 
were, indeed, auspicious arrangements. 

And besides the seventy dollars paid Miss 
Manners for tuition, the class members 
brought their own supplies and were priv¬ 
ileged to take them home with them, in the 
form of various tempting dishes, “the like 
of which’’ as Nancy expressed it, “never 
had been seen in Long Leigh before nor 
since.” 


205 


206 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


“ Maybe you don’t know you’re a 
wonder,” Ruth remarked very casually to 
Nancy, while she, as secretary, was consult¬ 
ing with Nancy as president. “I can cook 
better now than I ever expected to in my 
whole life. And as for Isabel! She’s so 
enthusiastic, her mother says she has to re¬ 
strain her from going into the boarding 
house business. You should just taste 
Belle’s 6 Cherry Moss.’ Um-m-m! It was 
de-lic-ious!” and Ruth smacked her lips to 
the echo. “Her brother Tom wanted to 
know why we didn’t make up a class for 
boys. He was in the army, you know, 
and so thinks himself very efficiently 
trained.” 

“Isn’t it great?” Nancy remarked, refer¬ 
ring, of course, to the success of the class. 
“And for a laggard, an idler and one who 
positively hated the very letters that spelled 
cooking, I think I’m doing pretty well my¬ 
self. I made a fudge cake yesterday and 
mother carried it out to set before the library 
ladies, can you imagine that ? A cake that I 


INTRODUCING NERO 207 

made f After my heartbreaking experience 
with the ungreased pans!” 

It was very early in the afternoon and 
Ruth, with Nancy, was putting the class 
room in order. She had remained over to 
lunch as she often did, and the two chums 
found pleasure in arranging the white cov¬ 
ered tables, the shining pans, the numbered 
spoons and other utensils. It was all so 
much pleasanter than doing anything in an 
ordinary kitchen. 

The gas range, that was sent in to Miss 
Manners as a demonstrator’s sample, was 
majestically white and really quite attrac¬ 
tive, if such an article can be called at¬ 
tractive, and just now Nancy hovered rather 
lovingly over it, polishing with the very 
softest, whitest cloth the impeccable, en¬ 
amelled surface. 

Ruth had been finishing a little memoran- 
dum in her oilcloth covered book. She laid 
the book down now and strolled over to 
Nancy. In their white aprons and white 
caps, Nancy and Ruth looked too pictur- 


208 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


esque to be passed by without compliment. 

Ruth wound her arm around Nancy’s 
shoulder. “I wonder,” she said, “why we 
sometimes think that all play is more 
fun?” 

“I never did,” replied Nancy, innocently. 
“My trouble always has been in finding 
enough different things to do.” She looked 
rather pathetically into the soft gray eyes 
that were caressing her own darker orbs. 
There was no impulsive hugging, nor other 
ordinary demonstrations of affections dear 
to the average emotional girls, for Nancy 
was not given to extremes, nor was Ruth ad¬ 
dicted to such flagrant sentiment. 

The two girls were especially happy just 
now. Nancy was accomplishing more, much 
more, than she had ever hoped to do, with 
her little shop that first brought real finan¬ 
cial help to her mother, and was now doing 
as much for Miss Manners. Besides all 
this, it was giving the girls themselves a 
very useful, as well as enjoyable, summer 
diversion. Ruth, although a new friend of 


INTRODUCING NERO 


209 


Nancy’s, had become a very fond friend in¬ 
deed, for the frank, original and genuine 
qualities of Nancy were unmistakable in 
their sincerity, and it was easy enough for 
any girl to love her—if she could but get 
near enough to her to know her. 

“ And you don’t think it shows a weakness 
to be so changeable?” Nancy asked Ruth. 
“I just can’t seem to be happy unless I’m 
planning something new.” 

“Why, that’s—that’s a sign of origin¬ 
ality,” replied Ruth, smoothing Nancy ’s cap 
on her dark hair. “Some day you’ll do 
something wonderful—” 

“About the girls,” Nancy interrupted. 
“Don’t you think we were fortunate to get 
the Riker girls to join the class? They 
seem to represent the smart set at Upper 
Crust Hill, and they brought at least five 
others along.” 

“Nancy, our school is the talk of Long 
Leigh. Lots of mothers think their girls 
should do something useful during the 
month of August, and I’d just like to see 


210 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


any mother find a study more useful than 
cooking—according to her ideas,” said 
Euth. 

“And Vera is going to take an extra hour 
for desserts,” Nancy went on. “I can see 
Vera the pride of her family some day. 
Such home talent may be inherited. We 
haven’t any of it in our family, I’m afraid,” 
said Nancy, regretfully. 

“But you’ve got something more pre¬ 
cious,” Euth assured her. “I never saw 
three folks so like one person as you three 
are, and yet you are all individually dif¬ 
ferent; if you know what I mean.” 

“I do,” said Nancy. “And you’re a dear, 
Euth. What would I have done out here 
without you?” 

“Taken the stylish Vivian Eiker to your 
heart,” teased Euth. “She’s a beauty.” 

There was a stir outside. 

“Look who’s here!” interrupted Nancy, 
jumping up and hurrying toward the door. 
“Ted! And he’s got the threatened new 
dog with him. Come and see!” 


INTRODUCING NERO 


211 


The threatened new dog was indeed being 
coaxed along by Ted, but he didn’t look ex¬ 
actly new. In fact, his coat was matted and 
shaggy, his tail hung down without a bit 
of “pep” in it, and even his long, long¬ 
haired ears seemed too discouraged to pick 
up the kindest words Ted was trying to pour 
into them. 

“Nero!” announced Ted simply, as Nancy 
opened the door and Ted tried to push the 
melancholy Nero in. 

“What ails him?” Nancy asked, looking 
the strange animal over, critically. 

“Just nothin’ but lonesome,” replied the 
small boy cryptically. 

“He looks pretty—blue,” Ruth com¬ 
mented, giving the dog a friendly but unap¬ 
preciated pat on his shaggy head. 

“Guess you’d be blue too, if you lived 
where he did,” Ted told Ruth. “That poor 
dog hadn’t a friend in the world until I 
found him. Here, Nero, come along and 
eat,” ordered Ted, while Nero followed 
him toward the back door through the erst- 


212 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 

while Whatnot Shop and present-time class¬ 
room. “He’s a fine dog,” the little fellow 
continued to praise, “and when I get him 
all fixed up he’ll be a beauty too,” he in¬ 
sisted stoutly. 

“Maybe,” Nancy almost giggled as she 
looked after Ted and his dog. “But when 
you take him to the beauty shop, Ted, you 
better get him a real Bussian bob, his hair 
is long enough to braid,” she commented 
gaily. 

“You can laugh,” Ted retorted, “but he’s 
a thoroughbred—a one-man dog. He won’t 
notice you girls. Come on Nero, attaboy,” 
chanted Ted, importantly. 

But being cooks, Nancy and Ruth could 
do no less than offer to provide Nero’s meal. 
Each thought he would like something else 
best, and each tried the other dish, pushing 
it under his indifferent nose and coaxing 
him with: 

“HereNero! Good! Eat! Eat-er-up!” 
etc. 

But Nero merely sniffed disdainfully, 


INTRODUCING NERO 


213 


snuggled his nose deeper into his flattened 
paws, and turned two big, brown adoring 
eyes up at his young master. 

“Pity about him!” quoth Nancy. 
“Maybe he wants some of Isabel’s Cherry 
Moss. Just stew or beefsteak or even fried 
potatoes are not, it seems, on his diet 
bill.” 

They were all out on the back porch, Ted 
squatted squarely beside the new dog, while 
the girls floated around Nero, like little tugs 
surrounding a big steamer. 

“He doesn’t have to eat,” Ted remarked 
indifferently, “he had a free lunch on the 
way over.” 

“He did!” screeched Nancy. “And you 
let us go to all this trouble!” She kicked 
the tin pan of water over in sheer disgust. 

“Well, I thought he might like something 
else,” murmured the small boy, provokingly. 
“He only had a big soup bone and loaf of 
bread.” 

Taking off their cooking-school caps and 
unbuttoning their aprons as they went, the 


214 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 

girls wended their way back to the deserted 
class room. 

“Can anyone beat that?” remarked 
Nancy, inelegantly. “Ted and his dog and 
the big—soup—bone! I could put a tune 
to that; a sad mournful dirgy tune.” 

“Wherever do you suppose he picked up 
the brute?” Ruth asked. “I don’t remem¬ 
ber having seen him around town.” 

“Oh, trust Ted,” replied Nancy. “When 
we first came here, mother answered him 
once, in a most casual, unthinking way: 
Wes.’ It seemed his question was could he 
have a dog, and mother hadn’t been paying 
strict attention. Since then he’s been on a 
hunt for a dog. He brought home a poor 
half-dead little tatters one day, but some 
boy followed him up and claimed the beauty. 
I wonder if this one will be left to him ? He 
seems pretty particular about his food, 
doesn’t he?” 

“Yes,” replied Ruth, who was just glanc¬ 
ing out the door. Suddenly she exclaimed: 

“Here’s a taxi coming, and it’s the one 


INTRODUCING NERO 


215 


mother always uses. I guess she’s sending 
for me, I’ll go out and see.” 

Nancy looked out and saw Ruth talking 
earnestly to the driver. She seemed to be 
disagreeing with the message he was giving 
her, and she turned abruptly to come back to 
Nancy. 

“Imagine that!” she panted, “Mother 
wants me to meet a train and take an old 
lady to see the Hilton house. As if I could 
show a house to one of father’s customers!” 
Ruth’s voice betrayed actual antipathy to 
the very idea. 

“But why not?” queried Nancy. “If she 
is just an old lady—” 

“A rich old lady who has come a distance 
without notifying father’s office, and there 
isn’t a man within call to take her out,” 
Ruth sighed miserably. The thought of 
showing a house seemed absolutely beyond 
her. 

“I’ll go with you,” Nancy offered. “Why 
couldn’t we show a house? We know how 
to call out rooms, don’t we?” 


216 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


Ruth jerked back her pretty head and 
stared at Nancy. 

“All right,” she exclaimed, brightening 
perceptibly. “I’ll go if yon promise to do 
the talking. I’m sure you can call off 
rooms and do more than that in the business 
line, Nancy. Let’s hurry. The train is al¬ 
most due.” 

So the two young “real estate ladies” 
were presently seated most circumspectly in 
the taxi, on the way to “meet a wealthy lady 
who wanted to look at the Hilton house.” 

And Nancy was fairly aglow with the 
prospect of a new and interesting business 
adventure. 


CHAPTER XIX 

A DISCOVERY 

“Isn’t she lovely? Looks like a cameo.” 
That was Nancy’s remark to Ruth when 
Mrs. Mortimer Cullen tarried in the sun 
parlor of the Hilton house, through which 
the girls were conducting her. 

But Ruth only sighed. Her task was too 
obnoxious to permit of compliments even to 
the handsome, elderly woman, who indeed 
did look like an animated cameo, set in a 
frame of gray veils, thrown over a small 
summer hat. 

c ‘Isn’t the garden beautiful from this 
porch?” Nancy enthused, joining Mrs. 
Cullen there. “Just look at that hedge! 
It’s literally screened in with fine white 
clematis! And look! Mrs. Cullen! Just 
see that bower of Golden Blows! Oh, I 
don’t believe I have ever seen such a beau¬ 
tiful place,” and Nancy flitted around like 
217 


218 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


a big butterfly herself, her yellow and white 
tissue dress escaping in little clouds about 
her, as she raced from room to room. 

“My grand-daughter Naomi, is quite like 
you,” smiled the amused lady. “If you see 
so much beauty here I am sure it would 
please her. And it is for her, principally, 
that I am considering coming to Long 
Leigh.” 

“Oh, I’m sure she’d love it,” chirped 
Nancy. “But do come upstairs and see all 
the wonderful bay-windows. Why, this 
house is made just like a lot of flower bowls. 
Every single room opens out in—Just see 
these windows. ” 

So Buth and Mrs. Cullen followed Nancy 
upstairs to see the windows. From that 
point of vantage she dragged them to the al¬ 
cove over the stairs and pointed out the 
“glorious garden,” from that view. And 
she was being perfectly sincere in her en¬ 
thusiasm. None of it was assumed, in fact, 
one would have imagined Nancy was con- 


A DISCOVERY 


219 


sidering buying the fine old homestead for 
her own use. 

They spent more than an hour looking 
over the place and even then Nancy hated to 
leave. 

“Imagine having a home like that,” she 
tried to whisper to Ruth. “I think I’d be 
satisfied even to do housework if I could 
look out that kitchen window as I did it,” 
she added, while Mrs. Cullen smiled her sat¬ 
isfaction into Nancy’s eager face. 

They drove back to the train with the 
prospective customer, who, when taking her 
leave, glanced significantly at Nancy. 

“My dear,” she said, “ you gave me a very 
pleasant little visit to your pretty Long 
Leigh, and I hope if my grand-daughter, 
Naomi, comes here—ever, she will meet 
you.” She then touched Ruth’s hand 
gently, saying something about having her 
father’s office get in touch with her. 

When the train had cleared the station 
the two girls broke into a much relieved 


220 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


giggle. Ruth declared that Nancy had won 
the heart of “Lady Cullen who is as rich 
as they come,” she explained, inelegantly. 

“And I had such a good time—” 

“Whoa there! No, you don’t, Antionette 
Brandon,” Ruth warned Nancy. “You are 
not going in the real-estate business, so you 
needn’t get all set for it. My father has a 
family to feed—” 

But the very gentleman spoken of was 
at that moment hurrying across the plat¬ 
form, to meet the two uproarious girls. 

He was most anxious to know about their 
mission. Mrs. Cullen, it appeared, was a 
very important personage, and he regretted 
genuinely the absence from his office of a 
suitable escort for the lady. 

“Oh, you needn’t worry, Daddy,” Ruth 
assured him, taking the city newspaper 
from one of his pockets and feeling for 
candy in the other. “Nancy took such good 
care of her that she almost stayed over to 
buy more houses. You’ll have to look out 
for Nancy, Dad.” Ruth continued to joke. 


A DISCOVERY 


221 


“‘She’s an expert business man, you know, 
and might take a notion to try real-estate.” 

6 ‘The more the merrier,” replied the 
genial gentleman, who, like Ruth, had great 
gray eyes and a clear florid complexion, 
“I’ve been wanting to see your mother, 
Nancy, ’ ’ he said next. i i Maybe, I could suit 
her better in a house than you are being 
suited in the Townsend place,” he ventured. 

“Oh, we love it over there,” Nancy hur¬ 
ried to state. “And besides, Mr. Ashley, 
we’re just poor folks,” she added 
laughingly. 

“So are we all of us,” joined in Mr. Ash¬ 
ley. “But I supposed, now that Sanders 
has struck his gold mine, he might want to 
buy the little place himself, sort of souvenir, 
you know.” As they talked, they were 
walking back to the waiting taxi, in which 
the girls had fetched Mrs. Cullen to the 
station. 

“Now Daddy,” objected Ruth, “we’ve had 
enough business for one afternoon. Nancy 
must get back home and I’ve got a music 


222 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


lesson, if Miss Dudley has waited for me, 
and I hope she hasn’t.” 

Nancy felt rather important stepping out 
of the taxi at her door, it seemed, somehow, 
much more business-like than just riding 
in someone’s private car, and she dashed 
up the store steps, still thrilled with enthu¬ 
siasm from her experience. 

Inside the door she found Ted, crouched 
before the fireplace urging Nero to “sic” 
something. 

“Get him, boy!” he was coaxing. “Go- 
get-him!” 

“Get whom?” Nancy asked, in surprise at 
the spectacle. 

“What ever is in that chimney,” the boy 
replied. c ‘ Do you think Nero couldn’t get it 
as good as that puny little dog of Miss 
Townsend’s?” 

“But how do you know anything is in 
there?” 

“Heard it—it whistles. Besides you said 
so.” Ted was not a waster of words. 

“I never said there was anything there,” 


A DISCOVERY 


223 


Nancy argued. “But what whistled? 
What did you hear?” 

“Just whistlin’. Sic him Nero!” and 
Ted tried to push the big shaggy head 
against the old-fashioned fireplace board, 
that was papered with a very brilliant and 
hideous set paper piece, the center repre¬ 
senting a terrible time among birds that 
looked like freak chickens. 

But Nero was absolutely deaf to Ted’s 
entreaties. No more would he “go for”' 
the chimney than he went for the food of¬ 
fered him by the solicitous young domestic 
science students, Nancy and Ruth. 

“I don’t think you should keep that big— 
untidy dog in here, Ted,” remonstrated 
Nancy, who hesitated over calling Nero 
“dirty” and felt foolish at calling him “un¬ 
tidy.” She crossed to the corner of the 
store and raised a window. “You know,” 
she continued, “this is a cooking school and 
everything has to be strictly sanitary.” 

“He’s strictly sanitary,” Ted declared, 
pressing his own curly head down to Nero’s. 


224 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


“I’m glad I’ve got him, I needed a chum 
around home,” he finished, affectionately. 

“How about me?” teased Nancy. 

“Oh you!” Ted was caressing Nero, and 
Nero w T as thudding his tail in response. 

“Yes, what about me, Ted? Don’t you 
like me any more?” 

“Like you! But you ought to hear folks 
talk. They say you’ll be starting a— 
butcher shop next.” 

Nancy drew her breath in sharply. Were 
they criticising her like that? 

“Who’s talking about me?” she de¬ 
manded of her brother. 

“Don’t have to get mad,” drawled Ted. 
“What do we care? We know, I guess,” 
he placated, tactfully. 

“But who’s talking?” she insisted. 

“It’s all jealousy,” the boy evaded. 
“They’re disappointed because the Town¬ 
sends and Mr. Sanders are getting along so 
well. First, they tried to make Mr. Sanders 
out foolish, and now they say this place is 


A DISCOVERY 


225 


spooky. Guess I’ve been here long enough 
to know,” he retorted, as if answering the 
unknown foes. 

But Nancy was stricken with that painful 
self-consciousness that so often lately had 
taken possession of her. The changeable 
girl, even her friends were calling her; why 
did she so love—to change? 

“Look!” whispered Ted, directing her 
attention to the dog. “He—hears—it!” 

Nero was now alert, head cocked to one 
side, ears pricked up, and every dog-feature 
of him ready to pounce. 

Ted and Nancy watched him, breathless. 

A little snapping bark, a growl, long and 
threatening; then a wild, fierce howl, and 
the big creature dashed against the fire- 
board! 

“There!” exclaimed Ted. “I told you 

soP 

“What is it?” gasped Nancy. 

But the barking of Nero shut out even the 
sound of their voices, and as brother and 


226 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 

sister looked on, the big dog pawed the fire- 
board, scratching away the paper, birds, 
flowers, impossible sky and all. 

Presently he turned from that attack and 
dashed to the back door. Ted and Nancy 
were quick to follow him. 

‘‘Let him out,” Nancy directed. “He 
may know there’s someone around .’ 1 

Unhooking the screen door Ted let his dog 
out. With a bounding leap Nero cleared 
the steps and dashed around the house to 
the chimney corner. 

“Look!” screamed Nancy, “there—goes— 
a—man!” 

As she pointed to the farthest corner of 
the lot, where the fence was broken down to 
admit a short cut to the avenue, they saw a 
man, just stepping through the brush. 

“Mr. Sanders!” exclaimed Ted. “I see 
his bald head!” 

“Mr. Sanders,” Nancy repeated. “What 
can he have been doing here?” 

“That’s what Nero is trying to find out,” 



Ted had his ear cocked to the small iron door. 














A DISCOVERY 


227 


replied Ted, dryly. “ Let’s see how he’s 
making out. He’s stopped barking. Maybe 
—he’s—got—it.” 

It took but a few moments to reach the 
side of the house, where the old-fashioned 
stone foundation was broken by a place, 
through which the ashes from the fireplace 
had once been cleaned out. Here sat Nero. 
He wagged his tail happily as Ted came up, 
and he now seemed perfectly satisfied and 
contented. 

“What is it Nero ?” Nancy coaxed patting 
the dog in a most friendly way. He was 
evidently winning her affection as well as 
Ted’s. 

But Ted knew best how to follow the an¬ 
imal’s lead. He was down on his knees in 
front of the mossy stones and had his ear 
cocked to the small iron door. 

“Yep,” he sort of gasped. “It’s there! 
It’s kinda-tickin’.” 

“Let me listen,” Nancy asked, dropping 
down beside him. 


228 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


For some time brother, sister and the big 
dog were all crouched there, attentive, eager 
and somewhat excited. 

“ Just a little sound—like an egg-beater,” 
Nancy suggested. “And look, Ted, those 
broken weeds! Mr. Sanders must have 
been in here just now.” 

“Sure, it’s his,” said Ted, in a manner as 
matter of fact as if an egg-beater “whis¬ 
tling” in the old fireplace was the most or¬ 
dinary thing in the world to expect being 
put there by Mr. Sanders. 


CHAPTER XX 

THE MIDNIGHT ALARM 

It was a very exciting story, indeed, that 
Ted and Nancy poured into their mother’s 
ears that evening. Had she any possible 
objections to adopting Nero as the fourth 
member of the family, they must have been 
quickly dispelled with the graphic account 
of that animal’s uncanny intelligence. 

“He seemed to know just where to find 
the outlet to the chimney,”’ Nancy said, 
“for he ran directly to the little furnace 
place, and we didn’t really know it was 
there ourselves.” 

“Of course, he knew,” said Ted impor¬ 
tantly. “Dogs know lots of things that we 
don’t. And he’s going to sleep in the store, 
isn’t he, Mother?” 

“Oh, not in the store, Ted,” objected 
Nancy. “Do you think that would be just 
right, Manny?” 


229 


230 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


“Well, a big dog like that,” demurred 
Miss Manners, who, now being a real resi¬ 
dent of the Brandon home, shared their ta¬ 
ble with them. 

“But he’s had a swim and he’s as clean as 
—as anything,” floundered the boy, quite 
unable to summon an appropriate compari¬ 
son for his great friend. “And Mother, he 
can watch the whole house for us. How do 
we know someone wouldn’t try to steal— 
the secret of the chimney place?” 

“It isn’t our secret,” retorted Nancy, 
“and for my part I can’t see what right Mr. 
Sanders has around our place at all.” 

“You can depend, dear,” said Mrs. 
Brandon gently, “that whatever he has put 
in the chimney, if anything, it is something 
that could in no way bother us. Mr. Sand¬ 
ers is a professor, and the old-fashioned 
stone oven may have some special interest 
for him.” 

“But couldn’t he ask us about it, if he 
wanted to—to plant a bomb there?” Nancy 
remarked, superciliously. 


THE MIDNIGHT ALARM 


231 


“He 7 s no gabber,’’ said Ted, with more 
wisdom than elegance. “And anyway, 
maybe he didn’t. But Mother, may I have 
the old steamer rug to make a bed for Nero ? 
He’s so big he needs a big bed.” 

It was finally agreed that Nero should be 
allowed to sleep in the store before the fire- 
board, and after much work making the rug 
into a bed for him, Ted eventually got him 
to try it. 

Very slowly the big shaggy creature 
sprawled himself out on the soft wool, but 
he only stayed sprawled for a few moments. 
The next, he got up, took a corner of the rug 
between his teeth, dragged it over to the 
show gas-range and, in a dog’s way, pro¬ 
ceeded to make his own bed. 

Every one was watching him and every 
one laughed. 

“He can do tricks,” Ted declared 
proudly. “I’m goin’ to train him for a lot 
of things. He could almost do anything,” 
the boy added, whereat even Miss Manners 
laughed softly. 


232 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


But Nero was settled at last, and so far as 
lie was concerned, gave no further trouble 
to the Brandon family for that evening. 
The subject of the buzzing, egg-beater noise 
in the chimney, coupled with Mr. Sanders 
leaving the grounds so suspiciously that 
afternoon was, however, discussed most 
thoroughly. 

Even to the children Mrs. Brandon’s con¬ 
fidence in Mr. Sanders, agreeing as it did 
with the confidence of so many other grown 
folks, gave cause for much curious specula¬ 
tion. Nancy pretended that she disagreed 
with this general sentiment, but that was 
only because she felt there was a certain in¬ 
justice in the manner of Mr. Sanders assum¬ 
ing rights over their personal property. 

Ted, on the contrary, was ready to vote 
for Mr. Sanders at every opportunity, and 
while he didn’t exactly say that Nero had at 
one time belonged to the people who had 
lived in the big stone house, he did say that 
Lou Peters, who gave him Nero, said that 
the Giffords, who belonged on the hill, used 


THE MIDNIGHT ALARM 233 

to feed Nero regularly at their back door. 
That was as near to proprietorship as Ted 
could bring Nero. Lou Peters had been 
keeping him among the old boxes, so he gave 
him to Ted. All of which followed a nat¬ 
ural sequence, for Ted himself had been 
feeding Nero dog biscuits and soup bones 
for a long time previously. 

“Isn’t it queer how jolly it seems to have 
a dog in the house,’’ remarked the boy, who 
was curled up on the couch and hugging a 
big story book from which, tonight at least, 
he read very little. 

“It does seem as if we have pleasant com¬ 
pany,” Miss Manners conceded agreeably. 
She was, as usual, at her fancy work—some 
exquisitely fine linen drawn work, being 
done for a city customer. 

“But I thought we all agreed never again 
to become attached to a dog,” recalled 
the mother. She was making notes and 
reading a book—a librarian’s method of 
reviewing. 

“We all felt so dreadfully when Grumpy 


234 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


died/’ Nancy recalled. She sighed effec¬ 
tively at the recollection. “Grumpy was 
the loveliest dog—” 

“So is Nero,” affirmed the fickle Ted. 
“In some ways he’s a lot smarter. You 
should have seen him do tricks for Lou Pet¬ 
ers. He’ll do them for me, too,” professed 
the youngster, “as soon as we get better 
acquainted.” 

“Oh, Ted,” digressed Nancy. “I’ve 
been wanting to ask you. Did Billy and 
Jack make out all right at home after their 
cave-in scare? Their folks weren’t angry, 
were they?” 

“Angry!” scoffed Ted. “They each got 
a quarter for ice cream cones; that’s how 
angry their mothers were. Jack and Bill 
are two—pets,” he finished, rather con¬ 
temptuously. “If they hadn’t been so soft 
they’d have known how to dig themselves 
out. Guess I’ll go to bed,” Ted then an¬ 
nounced suddenly and surprisingly, for he 
usually wanted to remain up even longer 
than the others. 


THE MIDNIGHT ALARM 


235 


“Now, that Nero is asleep/’ teased 
Nancy. “But never mind, Ted,” she 
amended. “I’ll give you credit for picking 
a fine dog. He’s handsomer than a collie, 
and not so awkward as a St. Bernard,” 
Nancy commented, rather critically. 

“Sure,” agreed Ted. “He’s a thorough¬ 
bred,” and with that all-meaning compli¬ 
ment, Ted put his book upon the shelf, 
looked very carefully in the store so as not 
to disturb the distinguished occupant, and 
almost whispered good-night, kissing his 
mother fondly as he took his actual leave. 

“Ted does love that dog,” Nancy re¬ 
marked indulgently. “And I’m glad you 
let him keep him, Mother, for Ted likes to 
wander off alone and a dog is good company 
for him.” 

“The dear little fellow!” murmured his 
mother. “I can hardly believe he is grow¬ 
ing up and becoming able to look after him¬ 
self. So often during the day, I stop and 
wonder—” 

“Oh, you needn’t, Mums,” interrupted 


236 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 

Nancy, “for Manny barely lets him out of 
her sight without all kinds of cautions. 
It’s lovely since Manny came,” Nancy con¬ 
cluded, a little shyly. 

Following all this each of the three ap¬ 
plied herself to her task, (Nancy was read¬ 
ing,) until the clock struck ten, then it ap¬ 
peared time to follow Ted’s example and 
retire, which they did. 

It had to happen, it always does. The 
dog barked wildly in the very blackest part 
of the night, and before they realized what 
had disturbed them, the Brandon household 
was awake and on its feet! 

“What can—it—be?” breathed little 
Miss Manners, wrapping her neat robe 
closely around her. 

“Why, it’s Nero,” answered Ted fool¬ 
ishly, although he was not trying to 
be funny. “He’s after someone. We’re 
safe.” 

But Ted’s unlimited confidence in his 
dog’s power to protect, did not lessen the 


THE MIDNIGHT ALARM 


237 


uncanny feeling produced by the midnight 
howling, growling bark. 

Mrs. Brandon did what she could to as¬ 
sure Nancy and Miss Manners that dogs 
often bark at almost nothing, but when she 
heard Nero’s paws scratching against the 
door that led from the hall into the little 
group of sleeping rooms, her own courage 
sagged somewhat. 

“Let him in!” ordered Ted. “Here, let 
me!” he corrected, going to the door and 
meeting bravely the wild greeting of Nero. 
“What is it, boy?” he asked. ‘What’s 
the matter?” 

To which question Nero threw his two 
great paws against Ted’s chest, barked not 
fiercely, but in that talking way dogs have, 
and then turned to race back down the 
stairs. 

“It’s no one he’s after,” explained Ted, 
“or he wouldn’t leave them to come up 
and tell me. He wants to show me 
something—” 


238 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


“Ted Brandon!” cried Nancy. 44 Don’t 
you dare go down—” 

“Ill go along,” volunteered Mrs. Bran¬ 
don. 4 4 As Ted says, the dog would have 
stood guard if any one were trying to get 
in.” 

There was no use in further arguing, for 
Ted was already close on Nero’s heels, fol¬ 
lowing him to the store whence he was lead¬ 
ing. Mrs. Brandon may have been timid, 
but small Ted’s confidence in his dog was 
very fortifying, and she, too, fell in with the 
small midnight procession. 

Nancy did not remain upstairs, neither 
did Miss Manners, for somehow it always 
does seem safer to 44 stick together” in that 
sort of trouble. 

No one spoke as they followed the dog. 
With great dignity he led them on, until, 
upon reaching the store, he made a pounce 
over to the corner near the chimney. 

44 Oh,” screamed Nancy. 44 It’s that old 
chimney—” 

44 It’s something else,” exclaimed Ted. 


THE MIDNIGHT ALARM 239 

“Just look here! A ‘busted’ water pipe. 
That’s what it is! Look—at—the—flood!’ ’ 

They all looked, and saw, issuing from a 
pipe that was connected near the fireplace, 
a very positive and very menacing stream 
of water. 

“Oh, my! Our things!” groaned Nancy. 
“I’ve got to turn the water off.” 

“But where? How?” asked Mrs. Bran¬ 
don in confusion, fully realizing the damage 
water could do. 

“I know,” replied Nancy, in her best 
business-like manner. “I was ‘monkeying’ 
with it the other day. It won’t take me a 
jiffy,” and while the others patted the intel¬ 
ligent Nero for his alarm, Nancy flew to the 
kitchen, got a wrench from Ted’s tool chest 
in the little corner closet, and then with one 
sure, swift turn, reversed the handle on the 
water pipe that led from the boiler to the 
pipes from the cellar. 

“It’s off,” yelled Ted. “That’s all right, 
Nan, it’s stopped.” 

“Why, daughter,” exclaimed Mrs. Bran- 


240 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


don, still breathless, “how did you know 
how to do—that?” 

“Because—she’s a good plumber,” de¬ 
clared Ted. “Hurrah! Nan! Let’s start 
a plumbing shop! That’s something you— 
haven’t tried yet.” 

“Ted!” said Nancy sharply. “I don’t 
like being made fun of. Anybody ought to 
know how to turn off a water pipe. We all 
know how to turn off the gas, don’t we?” 

“Ted didn’t mean to be rude, dear,” Mrs. 
Brandon assured the injured one, “but we 
were so surprised.” 

“And Nancy does seem to have such a 
talent for business,” ventured Miss Man¬ 
ners. “I tell you, dear,” and she gathered 
her robe around her as she followed the oth¬ 
ers out of the store, “it is something to be 
proud of. Any of us can be just housekeep¬ 
ers, but it takes a different sort of ability to 
be—the man of the house,” she said, which 
was an unusual figure of speech for prim 
Miss Manners to make use of. 

“She can’t be that,” objected Ted. 


THE MIDNIGHT ALARM 


241 


“Very well, then,” said Nancy. “Let’s 
see you mop up that floor, Ted,” she chal¬ 
lenged. “That’s a plumber’s job, too,” she 
pointed out. But it was Mrs. Brandon who 
found the mop and Ted who used it. Nancy 
felt perhaps, that the executive part, in 
turning off the water, was enough for her 
to have done. 

She was hurt, unwillingly, at Ted’s jok¬ 
ing remark. 

“A plumber shop,” she reflected men¬ 
tally. “Well, one could do worse, for 
plumbers are necessary and needle-work 
fiends aren’t. Maybe I will take up some¬ 
thing practical before I find what would be 
best for me,” she continued to reason. 

But none of them knew, nor was it pos¬ 
sible for them to guess, what Nero had 
saved in his timely midnight alarm. 


CHAPTER XXI 

FOR VALUE RECEIVED 

It seemed but a very short time later that 
Nancy was again awakened. But now the 
sunshine was streaming into her room, and 
she heard Miss Manners talking down in 
the hall, in a suppressed voice. 

“The children are not up yet,” she was 
saying. “But come in, Ruth. You see we 
were somewhat disturbed—” 

“Come on up, Ruth!” called out Nancy. 
“Come up and hear about our par-tee!” 

Ruth came up promptly, and the story of 
the broken water pipe was presently being 
told her, brokenly. 

“How perfectly—thrill-ing!” she com¬ 
mented in her well known characterization 
of the affected Vera. “But you should 
have had Nero turn off the water—” 


242 


FOR VALUE RECEIVED 


243 


“I’ll bet be could too,” shouted Ted from 
his room. Ted never lost a chance to praise 
Nero. 

“But just listen to my story,” Ruth 
begged. “I’ve got a thrilling yarn, too.” 

“Then, wait until I get propped up for 
it,” ordered Nancy. “I can’t hear comfort¬ 
ably when I’m down.” She put her two 
pillows under her shoulders and assumed a 
most affected air of the tired society girl 
after her dance. Even a cap was impro¬ 
vised from a twisted stocking, a lacy robe 
was concocted from her thin, soft slip, and 
the luxurious effect was completed by Ruth 
piling upon the bed a bunch of mussed up 
store paper—the morning mail! 

“There now,” said Ruth, “I hope you can 
hear. Although I must say you are not well 
cast. The character for you, Nan, is that 
of a short haired lady at a big desk, her eyes 
bulging out of goggles and her waist line 
strapped into a belt. You know—” 

“Yes, I know,” admitted Nancy, “but I 
like this better—it’s more becoming, isn’t 


244 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 

it?” Another pose and a shift of the lacy 
robe. Then Nancy appeared ready to hear 
Ruth’s story. 

“You sold the place!” Ruth blurted out 
without a hint of its coming. 

“The place?” 

“Yes. To Lady Cullen. And she said 
positively over the long distance last night 
to Dad, that she never would have bought it 
but for you.” 

“Of course, she would,” scoffed Nancy. 

“Nope. Dad said that place just wouldn’t 
sell. He and his men have shown it to so 
many. But dear Mrs. Cullen!” Ruth 
sighed foolishly. “She told Dad that the 
young lady was so enthusiastic over the 
place that she was positive her grand¬ 
daughter, Naomi, would react in the same 
way. Notice that Nan, re-act.” 

“Yeah,” drawled Nancy. “That’s what 
this is—I’m—re-acting,” and she fell 
further back among her pillows. 

“But really, Nan, it is true,” insisted 
Ruth, laying hold of one of Nancy’s long, 


FOR VALUE RECEIVED 245 

slender hands. “And you needn’t blush 
about it, either. “I think the way you 
blush under that olive skin of yours—” 
But a pillow, vigorously applied to Ruth’s 
face, checked further compliments. 

“If you don’t want to hear,” Ruth pres¬ 
ently continued. 

“Of course I do. I’m just as glad as 
glad, Ruth, that your dad has sold the place, 
but I know very well Mrs. Cullen would 
have bought it anyhow.” 

“She wouldn’t. Dad says so, she says so 
—I say—says—so,” declared Ruth. “And 
if you don’t believe it just listen to this.” 
She changed her position sitting up very 
straight and facing Nancy very positively 
to make the statement most emphatic. 
“Mrs. Cullen very tactfully suggested 
that your interest and your success be— 
remunerated.” 

“Ruth!” 

“Now, don’t let me hurt your feelings, 
Nan, but Dad would honestly love to have 
you accept.” 


246 NANCY BEANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


“I won V’ declared Nancy, blushing fur¬ 
iously now. ‘ 6 The idea—” 

“Then, he will talk to your mother about 
it. Do you know, little girl, what a lot of 
money a big sale like that brings to Dad’s 
firm ? And how much he would have to pay 
out in commission to the man who suc¬ 
ceeded in making the sale?” 

“I know one thing,” said Nancy, shifting 
herself out of the bed and planting two bare 
feet firmly upon the floor, “I’m being made 
a business woman, a store-keeper, a cooking 
school director, a plumber and now a real- 
estate agent. I don’t mind being a few 
things but that’s quite a—lot!” 

“You haven’t said Enthusiast,” Ruth re¬ 
minded her, “that is what counts most. 
But Nancy, you really ought to consider,” 
pressed Ruth. “The money would mean so 
much to your mother, and you have a per¬ 
fect right to it. I knew the way you 
were tearing around that big place, that 
you would flim-flam Cullen,” joked Ruth. 


FOR VALUE RECEIVED 


247 


“ And Dad says, a hundred dollars isn’t any¬ 
thing on a fifteen thousand dollar deal—” 

“Fifteen thousand!” 

“Yes, all of that. And here’s the little 
one hundred check,” Euth was pressing a 
slip of paper into Nancy’s unwilling hand. 
“Dad will be dreadfully disappointed if you 
refuse—you’re not too proud, are you?” 

“Too proud!” and the black eyes snapped 
little pin points of sparks. “No, indeed, I 
mean to be a business woman, like mother, 
and I don’t care how soon I start,” pro¬ 
claimed Nancy, firmly. 

“Spoken like—Nancy Brandon!” hailed 
Euth, gleefully, for she had known all along 
what a task it would be to get Nancy to take 
the check. And just as she had honestly 
stated, the amount given Nancy was but a 
small fraction of that which a man from 
Mr. Ashley’s office would have had to re¬ 
ceive for the same service. 

Unbelieving, Nancy stared at the check. 

“One hundred dollars!” she murmured, 


248 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


her eyes now beaming with anticipation. 
“And mother’s vacation only three days 
off!” 

“But please, Nan,” Ruth hurried to 
change the subject, “don’t go away to parts 
unknown and leave me pining here. Of 
course, there are lots of girls—hanging 
around,” she smiled very prettily and 
looked very dimply as she said this, “but 
since you came to Long Leigh, Nan, the 
other girls don’t count as much as they 
did.” 

“I suppose,” said Nancy in her “twin¬ 
kling” way, “that may be because I’m such 
a freak. I’m a lot of fun—” 

“Nan—cee!” 

“Ruth—ee!” 

And they finished the argument with a 
very pardonable show of affection, if it was 
only a sound slap on Nancy’s not fully 
clothed shoulders and a pretty good whack 
on Ruth’s plump little thigh. 

When Nancy was alone again, (for Ruth 
was to meet the girls at Isabel’s and they 


FOR VALUE RECEIVED 


249 


were all going for a swim before their ten 
o’clock cooking lesson,) she smoothed out the 
little blue check lovingly. It was so strange 
to think that money was acquired through 
mere enthusiasm. That Mrs. Cullen would 
have decided to buy that enormous place 
merely upon Nancy’s—enthusiasm. That 
the cooking school had been started and 
was successfully running because of her— 
enthusiasm! 

44 Perhaps,” she told the reflection in her 
glass, “it’s a good thing to despise some 
kinds of work if it makes one enthusiastic 
for other kinds. But even now,” she was 
insisting to that same mocking smile, “I 
ccm make a very good cake.” 

To meet the girls at the lake, Nancy took 
a short cut up, over the hill that would lead 
her past the old stone house. She had hur¬ 
ried her breakfast and made sure that Miss 
Manners did not need her help to get ready 
for the class, then, gowned in the easiest 
thing to put on—and off, her lavender ging¬ 
ham, she raced off up the hill. 


250 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


But she never could hurry past the stone 
house; everything around it held fascina¬ 
tion for Nancy, even the half-formed dread 
that someone or something would drop 
down from the sky, or spring up out of the 
earth, as Mr. Sanders had formerly been 
accused of doing. So, instead of crossing 
the fence where the old cedar tree had 
broken through and had thus made an open¬ 
ing, Nancy continued on up through the 
stone path that would bring her out at the 
apple orchard. 

“As if there could be anything weird in 
this open place,’’ she was saying. “Why, 
the old cistern over there looks as spic-span 
as when folks used to draw water from it, 
and I’m sure,” she was thinking, “a turned 
upside-down rain-barrel shows care and at¬ 
tention—no mosquitoes can breed in that.” 

She stood a few moments to enjoy the soft 
summer scene, for it was not yet quite time 
to meet the girls, when from the direction 
of the rain-barrel she head a whine, a cat’s 
cry, surely. 


FOR VALUE RECEIVED 


251 


“Some poor cat maybe caught in briars,’’ 
Nancy decided promptly, as again came a 
piteous meaow of a kitten or a cat. 

Following the call Nancy hurried in its 
direction. 

4 ‘Here puss?” she called. “Kitty-kitty- 
kitty!” 

The cry stopped as her voice called to it. 
It was not near the rain barrel, Nancy now 
decided, but over by the cistern. Quickly 
she turned in that direction, but when 
within a few feet of the square little box 
that covered the artificial well, she was sud¬ 
denly startled by a noise—a queer noise. 

“What’s that?” was her unspoken 
question. 

She listened. It was a man’s voice, 
singing! 

“Where, where—can that be!” she mur¬ 
mured half aloud, meanwhile unconsciously 
walking toward the cistern. 

Then a hammering! A buzzing! 

“Oh!” screamed Nancy in alarm, now 
realizing that she had been hearing some- 


252 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


thing very strange indeed. “Oh, I must— 
get—away!” was her wild determination, 
as she turned and dashed down the hill, 
making her way this time through the open¬ 
ing in the fence where the cedar tree had 
fallen. 


CHAPTER XXII 

TARTS AND LADY FINGERS 

No one would believe her. They all came 
out of the water as Nancy arrived at the 
beach, and declined positively, to go in. 

“I’m too—flustered,” she insisted. “My 
head is swimming now and it doesn’t mat¬ 
ter about my heels.” 

“But Nancy,” protested Marion Mason, 
one of the Upper Crust Hill girls, “how 
could you have heard anybody or anything 
in that open field? No bushes nor trees big 
enough to hide behind, just there.” 

“It was the cat,” insisted Christine Berg, 
a friend of Marion’s. “There are queer 
cats—always have been—around the old 
stone house. First, the cat meaowed, just 
to entice you,” said Christine, wringing out 
the scant skirt of her black satin bathing 
suit. “And then, when she got you over 

253 


254 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 

there, she did the rest,” finished the very 
blonde girl with the lovely hazel eyes. 

“Sort of ventriloquist,” added Isabel. 
“Well, at any rate, Nan, you have had a 
thrill. Yera, wouldn’t that constitute a 
thrill, don’t you think?” 

“I’ll tell you what I think,” chimed in 
Euth. “I think we had better hurry to 
dress or we shall be late for our lesson, and 
mine is cream-puffs today. Our family 
can eat cream-puffs until the puff—” But 
the girls, running up to the little bath houses, 
deprived Euth of her audience, and also of 
the necessity of finishing her simile. 

Nancy sat on the little board-walk edge 
of the row of houses, while the girls dressed. 
Euth finished first and joined her there. 

“Eeally, Nan?” she quizzed, in an under 
tone. 

“Most certainly—really,” replied Nancy, 
seriously. “Do you suppose I would make 
that up for fun?” 

“No, I don’t. It isn’t your brand of fun. 
But it’s mighty curious. Do you suppose 


TARTS AND LADY FINGERS 255 

we should all go up there right now, and go 
over every inch of the place—” 

“Oh, no. We must go back to Manny 
and be good cooks,” Nancy answered. 
“Besides Ruth, she has my check and I’m 
anxious to see if it is still there, not just a 
dream check you know,” she smiled under¬ 
standing^ at Ruth. 

Rather towsled from their bath, and the 
lack of time and tools for hair arrange¬ 
ments, the party of girls presently started 
off to take their domestic science lesson. 
Along the way they met and hailed a num¬ 
ber of friends, for at bathing hour the lake 
drew folks from all parts of the village and 
its suburbs, but there was no time for tarry¬ 
ing as Miss Manners insisted upon prompt¬ 
ness, and no one willingly ever disregarded 
her rule. 

It was a merry little group that, all 
aproned and capped, listened first to Miss 
Manners explanation of rules and reasons, 
and then they themselves undertook the 
practical art of applying this knowledge. 


256 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


But Nancy could not forget her expe¬ 
rience. It had been so weird, so wild, in 
fact, to hear those noises coming from no¬ 
where. 

Ruth was heating the eggs light as air for 
her cherished cream puffs; Isabel was care¬ 
fully creaming an equally dainty concoction 
in her middle-sized yellow bowl, and the 
other girls were being similarly and as 
practically engaged, when a shadow, a large 
manly shadow, darkened the glass that 
formed the upper part of the store door. 

“A visitor!” exclaimed Marion, smooth¬ 
ing her cap at the risk of spoiling her 
batter. 

Miss Manners stepped to the door to an¬ 
swer the knock. 

“Mr. Sanders!” the girls whispered one 
to another, as they saw Miss Manners greet 
the caller. 

“Maybe he’s going to inspect—” Chris¬ 
tine began, but was stopped by Miss Man¬ 
ners speaking. 

“Girls,” she said, in her best teacher 


TARTS AND LADY FINGERS 


257 


voice, “Mr. Sanders has called to see if 
we can fill an order for him.” 

“An order!” chorused the surprised 
pupils. 

“Yes,” spoke up the one man among 
them. “The fact is, young ladies, I’m giv¬ 
ing a little party up at Waterfall House, 
and I felt convinced that my attractions 
would be greatly increased if I could pro¬ 
cure some—some confections from this fam¬ 
ous little class,” he said. 

Miss Manners was all but protesting. 
That her class could be called “famous” 
seemed to her rather too extravagant a 
statement. 

“Yes, indeed,” went on the caller, while 
it must be admitted some of the girls were 
stifling giggles. “My daughter is coming 
up, and she thinks her college excells in this 
sort of thing.” His sweeping gesture 
seemed to include everything, even the 
girls. “And I would be mighty glad to 
show her what we can do in our little Long 
Leigh.” 


258 NANCY BEANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


Followed suggestions and questions, so 
heaped up that the mere wording of all the 
excitement amounted to little compared with 
its general effect. Finally, Mr. Sanders 
and Miss Manners went into a secret ses¬ 
sion, to outline the order, and the girls, who 
were supposed to go on with the lesson, in 
reality went on with the fun. 

‘ ‘ Imagine! ’* chuckled Eleanor Dixon, 
“getting an order for fancy cakes! I’m go¬ 
ing to make kisses—” 

“Lady fingers, would be more appro¬ 
priate,” Isabel remarked sagely, “although, 
El, I have heard Miss Manners say, your 
biscuits are—splendid.” 

“Tarts!” whispered Christine, shaking 
her long handled spoon, and making a com¬ 
ical face. 

‘ ‘ Mac-a-roons! ” came from Dorothy’s 
corner. 

But Mr. Sanders was now preparing to 
leave, and Miss Manners was conducting 
him to the door, her face alight with the 
pleasant excitement. As the caller walked 


TARTS AND LADY FINGERS 


259 


past Nancy he said to her in an undertone: 

“Can I speak to you, just a minute, 
Nancy ?” 

Without answering Nancy followed him 
outside to the porch. 

“I’m coming up to see your mother this 
evening,” he said, when their voices were 
beyond reach of the others. “I’ve been ex¬ 
pecting to for some time, but now I must . 
Will you tell her, please? And be sure to 
be on hand yourself, you and Ted, for I’m 
about ready to disclose the long promised 
secret,” he finished, his eyes twinkling mer¬ 
rily as he spoke. 

“Oh, all right, certainly,” faltered 
Nancy, not quite sure just what she was 
saying. 

“Yes,” continued Mr. Sanders, “the sum¬ 
mer, is going fast and I’m glad things have 
shaped themselves before we were, any of 
us, forced to separate.” He was patting 
his brown hands together gleefully. 

“Would you mind if Isabel and Euth 
came over? They’re my best friends and 


260 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


you can trust them,” ventured Nancy, sur¬ 
prised at herself for doing so. 

“ Certainly, by all means, have them 
come,” replied Mr. Sanders. “I see you 
anticipate a surprise, and you are generous 
enough to want to share it with your 
friends. That’s the spirit I like to see. 
Tonight it will be a sort of private perform¬ 
ance,” he smiled as he said this, “but to¬ 
morrow night at the hotel I’m going to tell 
all who come. That’s what I want your 
cakes for,” he finished, moving down the 
low steps. “We’re going to have a celebra¬ 
tion and—well, I’ll see you this evening,” 
he promised, hurrying off like a happy 
school boy. 

There was little work done in the cooking 
lesson after that. Everybody was so ex¬ 
cited at the prospect of filling a real order, 
that the entire class immediately set to plan¬ 
ning just how it was to he filled. 

It was Christine, however, who had what 
Ruth called “the inspiration.” After the 
class was dismissed she got the girls to- 


TARTS AND LADY FINGERS 261 

gether, out of Miss Manner’s hearing, and 
made her suggestion. 

“Let’s all come early,” she began, “very 
early. We’ll do our very best, of course, 
we can make wonderful cakes.” 

“You can,” corrected Nancy. 

“So can you, Nan,” Christine took time 
to say, “I’d like to see any one make a bet¬ 
ter sponge cake—” 

“Oh, sponge cake,” scoffed Nancy. 

“The very thing most needed to go with 
ice cream, ’ ’ Christine hurried to say. 6 6 But 
listen—” 

“We are,” said Ruth. 

“We will take whatever money we get for 
the entire order, (we donate the materials, 
of course,) and with the money we’ll buy a 
gift for—Manny!” said Christine. 

“Hurrah!” came a hushed hail, for there 
was danger of the plans being overheard. 

However, Christine’s idea was enthus¬ 
iastically received, and there was no pos¬ 
sible doubt of the entire plan being success¬ 
fully carried out. 


262 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 

Ruth remained with Nancy and so did 
Isabel, so that she readily found an oppor¬ 
tunity to tell them of Mr. Sander’s message. 
They were as usual, putting things away, 
Miss Manners being obliged to leave early 
to give a private lesson to an invalid girl. 

“And we are actually going to hear the 
secret,” gasped Nancy. “Girls, you don’t 
know how excited I am—” 

“You don’t know how crazy I am,” added 
Ruth. 

“And how wild I am,” put in Isabel. 
“Think we should have a doctor within 
call ? Will it be overwhelming ? ’ ’ she joked. 

“Better have a policeman,” suggested 
Ruth. “He may disclose some gems, or 
other valuables.” 

“Here comes Ted,” Nancy interrupted, 
“and I know by his walk that he’s worried. ” 

Ted strode in, Nero close beside him, and 
as Nancy had intimated he did act worried. 

“What’s the matter, Ted?” Ruth asked 
first. 

“Matter? I’ve got to hide this dog. 


TARTS AND LADY FINGERS 


263 


Folks want to take him away from me. 
Say he’s theirs,” Ted’s words fairly hissed 
his indignation. 

“Who says so?” demanded Nancy 
belligerently. 

“A man who came np to the old stone 
house,” answered Ted. “But Nero was 
Lou Peter’s dog and Lou gave him to me, 
and not all the money there is, is going to 
get my dog away from me.” 

Ted’s voice was not very positive, and 
the girls, all three, assisted him in coaxing 
Nero out to the small door under the back 
porch, where he was finally made a prisoner, 
with several plates of food set before him 
to lighten the misery. 

It surely would be disastrous for Ted to 
lose his dog. 


CHAPTER XXIII 

THE STORY TOLD 

The Whatnot Shop was quite powerless 
to prevent the invasion. 

“We ’ll push all the tables back and set 
the chairs around in a half-circle,” sug¬ 
gested the fluttered Nancy. ‘ 4 Then, it will 
be just like—” 

“A play,” finished Isabel. “Too bad we 
can’t turn on a spot light.” 

“I think it would be nice to let Mr. Town¬ 
send sit behind the counter on his old 
high stool,” Nancy further suggested. “It 
might make him feel at home. I wonder 
where we put that stool.” 

“Away back in the corner under the 
three-cornered shelf,” Ruth informed her. 
“I rammed it in there myself.” 

It was dragged out—the stool, and set 
just where it had been found when Nancy 
first took possession of the shop. 

264 


THE STORY TOLD 


265 


“A regular par-tee !” chanted Isabel. 
“Glad I happened to wear a white dress; 
being a deb and all that.” 

“You may carry the white paper fan, lit¬ 
tle deb,” mocked Nancy. “We couldn’t 
sell it so I’d be delighted to donate it to your 
coming out party.” 

“Oh, it isn’t mine, it’s yours,” chirped 
Isabel, “and I hope you are not going to 
wear that howling yellow gingham—” 

“I am. Yellow’s my color,” and Nancy 
flipped the skirt of her dress around gaily. 

They were preparing, as might easily be 
guessed, for the “private performance” 
promised by Mr. Sanders. Nancy had 
talked with him over the phone, after his 
visit to the class that morning, and arrange¬ 
ments were then made to invite the Town¬ 
sends over, besides permission having been 
granted Ted to bring in his chum, Buster 
Clayton. Just now Ted was upstairs dress¬ 
ing; also singing and telling stories to Nero, 
most of which racket could be heard down 
in the store. 


266 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


Mrs. Brandon’s cheeks became soft as 
damask when Nancy showed her the big 
check for one hundred dollars, which Nancy 
explained was in no sense a gift, but purely 
part of a business transaction between her 
and Mr. Ashley’s real-estate office. The 
mother did not try to hide her delight, that 
Nancy should have become such “a splen¬ 
did little business woman,” and she pre¬ 
dicted her own retirement from the office 
at an early date, if such wonderful achieve¬ 
ments were to be kept up. 

“And your bank account, my dear,” she 
told Nancy when they were in confidence 
over the developments, “aren’t you proud 
of it9” 

“A little, Mother-mine,” faltered the 
happy girl, “but there’s something better 
than that,” she said shyly, for Nancy was 
not given to boasting. 

“I know,” and the mother arms went 
around her. “Besides, you know now that 
even despised housework is not so bad when 
it has an interesting motive. That’s why 


THE STORY TOLD 


267 


we mothers tolerate it; because we are 
working for our darling children.’’ 

“I know, Mums, but I really only thought 
‘dishes’ before, now I think—” 

“The joy of helping us/’ Mrs. Brandon 
supplied. “And I’m so proud of your 
cooking, and how much it has benefited Miss 
Manners, as well as your friends. Why, 
my dear, I would make you vain were I to 
tell you one-half of what I hear—” 

“Not vain, Mums. I’m not silly enough 
for that, for I’ve got to admit I’ve been 
rather selfish all the way through—it has 
been such a lot of fun.” 

And Nancy meant it. She was not pos¬ 
ing, nor was she playing at being humble, 
for her mind was of that quality that rea¬ 
sons and analyzes one’s own motives as well 
as looking for motives in others. In that 
way she had acquired what is called “com¬ 
mon sense,” perhaps because every one 
should try, at least, to possess a measure 
of it. 

Now Mrs. Brandon, as well as Ted, was 


268 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


dressing. To please Nancy she had prom¬ 
ised to wear her geranium georgette, a soft 
dress that toned so well with her dark hair 
and dark eyes, for Mrs. Brandon was still 
young, and a handsome woman. 

And the girls were fairly dancing around 
the store, arranging chairs brought in from 
the porch, dining room and even from the 
kitchen. 

“Let’s make a little platform for Mr. 
Sanders,’’ Buth proposed. “This top step 
of the back stairs will do. We don’t have 
to open that door.” 

“And have a stand and a glass of wa¬ 
ter—” Isabel added. 

1 i And flowers,’’ insisted Nancy. “I must 
have flowers, they’re so silly for a man’s 
speech, they’ll make every body laugh.” 

“Maybe hollyhocks would,” Buth said, 
“but I doubt if your audience would see 
the joke if you put a bunch of roses there.” 

So they progressed, until very soon, too 
soon for the girls, the company began to 


arrive. 


THE STORY TOLD 


269 


Mr. and Miss Townsend, and little, 
brown, woolly Tiny came first. 

“I’m afraid we’re early,” said the lady 
in her best silver silk dress and her very 
pretty new black-satin-trimmed-with-silver 
grapes, hat. She carried a little flat cush¬ 
ion for Tiny, out of respect for the silver 
silk dress. 

“Mother will be down directly,” Nancy 
greeted Miss Townsend, in her very best 
manner. ‘ ‘ Sit over here. We’ve fixed this 
corner for you.” 

“Oh my!” exclaimed the lady in gen¬ 
uine admiration. “How lovely everything 
looks! However did you paint this old 
wood work white?” 

“For our cooking class, you know,” re¬ 
plied Nancy, gaily. “Doesn’t % it look— 
hygienic?” 

i ‘ I—should—say—so! ’ ’ Miss Townsend 
was aghast. “And I suppose, those spot¬ 
less tables—” 

“Are the old ones from around the 
porches and every place,” Nancy informed 


270 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 

her. “We just daubed the legs white and 
covered the tops with oil cloth.” 

“And I want to see that gas range. I’ve 
heard so much about it. Oh! there’s 
Miss Manners,” exclaimed Miss Townsend, 
“she’ll explain it to me, and you may run 
along, dear.” This was a release, not a 
dismissal for Nancy. 

“She’ll buy one and that will be a good 
big discount for Manny,” Nancy told 
the girls who had heard most of the 
conversation. 

“Yes. They’ve bought a new house—a 
brand spic-span new one,” Ruth whispered. 
“Father said Miss Townsend wanted the 
shiniest one he had for sale,” and there was 
a pardonable titter in response to that. 

But guests were now arriving in pairs. 
There were Mr. and Mrs. Ashley, Ruth’s 
parents, Mr. and Mrs. Duryee, Isabel’s par¬ 
ents, besides Ted, Buster and Nero, the lat¬ 
ter three being promptly assigned by Ruth 
to the corner nearest the side door. 

“So you can watch for prowlers,” she 


THE STORY TOLD 


271 


joked. “Some other folks might sneak up 
on the porch and listen in. ’’ 

“I’m all but stage struck,” panted Nancy, 
trying to force the little kicked-up curls 
around her ears back into place. “And 
girls, take your places!” she admonished. 
“Here comes—the—talent! Mr. Sanders 
and Sibyl!” 

It really was taking on the look of some 
sort of entertainment,—for as Mr. Sanders 
and his daughter arrived there was a gen¬ 
eral presentation all around by Mrs. Bran¬ 
don, while the girls, feeling very much like 
ushers at a school entertainment, stood with 
backs to the windows, just as they always 
did at school affairs. 

The preliminary formalities over, Mr. 
Sanders was rather humorously conducted 
to the “platform.” This pleased Mr. 
Townsend “most to death” and he was 
heard to chuckle that “the old fire-house as 
town-hall had never held a better meeting.” 

“I’ll not keep you in suspense, my 
friends,” began Mr. Sanders, without so 


272 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


much as clearing his throat, “but I’ll just 
introduce myself to those who don’t happen 
to know me. I’m Edwin Sanders of East¬ 
ern College, professor of science there.” 
There was a murmur through the room at 
that announcement. 

“Professor!” was the surprised word it 
conveyed. 

“And I came here to experiment,” the 
gentleman continued in a pleasantly mat¬ 
ter of fact voice. “I found this little house 
had a direct air shaft, it runs from this 
room at that old fireplace down to the cel¬ 
lar, and out through an old-fashioned flue- 
door, you know the kind.” 

“That’s a relic on this place,” spoke up 
Mr. Elmer Townsend. “It was built in 
here by a Dutch man from Holland—” 

“Yes, and it’s a good one,” agreed Mr. 
Sanders. “Well, you see, my friends,” he 
continued, “I had to experiment on an ex¬ 
tremely delicate little instrument,” he was 
all professor now, “so, when I found the ex- 


THE STORY TOLD 


273 


act conditions that I required here, I made 
an offer to the owner, Mr. Townsend.’’ 

There was much shifting around and 
significant scraping of chairs at this point, 
but the speaker was in no way disturbed. 

“I thought it only fair to tell him how 
important my experiment was, and what 
it would mean if it worked out as I ex¬ 
pected. Well, it did,” he stated emphati¬ 
cally, “but not without the usual trouble that 
must be endured if we want to succeed in 
big things.” 

Miss Townsend was whispering, or she 
thought she was, and her brother was try¬ 
ing to restrain her. 

“I could not tell the nature of this work 
because there was a new secret principle in¬ 
volved in it,” Mr. Sanders said, having 
overheard, likely, what Miss Towpsend was 
trying to tell her neighbor. “That was why 
Mr. Townsend and I had to keep our secret 
so close.” 

Ted and Buster were visibly squirming in 


274 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


their chairs, they were so interested, but old 
Nero snoozed contentedly, not even suspect¬ 
ing, apparently, the presence of another 
dog, Tiny, that was safely hidden in Miss 
Townsend’s cushion. And as if Mr. San¬ 
ders remembered Tiny, he next said: 

“Even the little dog was so interested as 
we worked he would insist upon barking a 
tune for us. Sometimes we were afraid he 
might tell,” he finished, quizzically. 

“That was it,” Ted privately told Buster. 
“Nancy said that puny, little dog barked all 
the time he was in here.” 

“After I got my point worked out in this 
air shaft,” went on Mr. Sanders, who had 
actually taken a sip of water from the glass 
at his hand, “I was obliged to try it out in 
a very much more condensed atmosphere. 
And just there is where I was forced to ex¬ 
cite such wild suspicions.” He was almost 
laughing at the recollection. 

“It was funny; I’m willing to admit that 
myself, for like the King of France in the 
story, I marched up the hill, but unlike him, 


THE STORY TOLD 


275 


I did not march down again. And I’m sur¬ 
prised that no one seems to have guessed 
where I was hidden.” 

There was a pause. Nancy’s face was be¬ 
traying her suspicions but she uttered no 
word. 

“ Just once I was almost discovered,” con¬ 
tinued Mr. Sanders. “And that was the 
other day when my cat—cried. Just then 
some one was passing—” 

“I was,” blurted out Nancy. “And I 
heard you singing!” 

Every one laughed. 

“Was I singing, really?” asked the pro¬ 
fessor. “Well, I might have been for I was 
surely very happy. The anemometer was 
working beautifully down there, in my— 
cistern!” 

4 i Cistern! ’ ’ Every one seemed to cry out 
the word. 

“He was in the cistern!” Nancy gasped. 
“That was where I heard the—noises coming 
from!” 


276 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


“In the cistern!” 

It took some time for the older folks to 
realize the significance of the revelation, 
but the girls and boys seemed instantly to 
understand. 

“ Yes, and you would be surprised what 
fine quarters I’ve had there. I have that 
nice, perfectly dry cistern actually fur¬ 
nished, even a rug on the floor! Chairs and 
a table, a looking glass—oh, you are all in¬ 
vited to inspect now,” announced the pro¬ 
fessor cheerily, “for my precious in¬ 
strument has been safely shipped to the 
manufacturers, and I’ve been able—” 

“He’s paid me more than a thousand dol¬ 
lars,” declared Mr. Townsend, rising from 
his chair and addressing the house, “and I 
think it’s only fair that folks around here 
should know how well I’ve made out on my 
investment.” 

“Yes indeed,” Miss Townsend chimed in, 
“if any body in Long Leigh has heard me 
say I was worried about Brother Elmer’s 
money affairs,” she sort of hesitated before 


THE STORY TOLD 


277 


framing that term, “I just want them to 
know now that we’ve made more money by 
Mr. Sanders investment in six months, than 
we would make in six years in this little 
store.’’ 

A burst of applause followed this. And 
presently every one seemed to he talking at 
once. The formality of the occasion was 
lost in a round of enthusiastic interest; the 
men demanding to know more about the in¬ 
vention, while the women and girls were 
keen to hear all about the cistern. 

Sibyl was glad to tell them about the 
curious little work shop under the ground, 
and she soon had a group of the young folks 
listening to her story. 

“I thought it was awful, at first,” she ex¬ 
plained, “but, of course, I’m used to father’s 
peculiar experiments. He has invented 
some wonderful instruments,” she said this 
in a properly restrained voice. “They are 
being used in the college observatories, 
where they make weather predictions, you 
know,” she pointed out. 


278 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 

“And I did notice some little pipes stick¬ 
ing out of the sides of that cistern box,” 
Nancy now remembered. “I might have 
known, but I was too surprised to inves¬ 
tigate,” she admitted frankly. 

“Really girls,” Sibyl went on, “Dad has 
that cistern furnished like a room. You 
walk down a little ladder, and sit on a reg¬ 
ular chair—” 

“But isn’t it dark?” Ruth wanted to 
know. 

“Oh, no. One whole side of the cover is 
glass, a side that is back away from the 
opening,” Sibyl told them. “No one would 
ever notice the glass there. And besides 
that, father had cut the concrete away, over 
on one side of the bowl, and there he made a 
little skylight. You would never notice 
that either, as there are bushes all around 
it,” she said. 

By this time Ted and Buster were de¬ 
manding to be heard. They had tried to 
get a hearing with the older folks, but ac- 


THE STORY TOLD 


279 


cording to Ted “the buzzing there was 
worse than a bee fight.” 

“And say, Nan,” he called out now, “I 
just want to know about—about what Nero 
was after down the cellar, you know.” 

Mr. Sanders was trying to make his way 
toward the girls just then, so Nancy delayed 
answering Ted. 

“And say, Ted,” Mr. Sanders began. 
“About your dog. You needn’t worry that 
anyone will take him from you. That man 
who spoke to you used to be care-taker at 
the old stone house. And he was supposed 
to look after Nero, whose real name is Jason. 
That’s the fellow who went after the Golden 
Fleece you remember.” 

“Jason?” repeated Ted. “Sounds like 
an auto fixer. I like Nero best.” 

“All right, son,” and Mr. Sanders gave 
Ted a friendly slap on the shoulders. 
“Nero he shall be. But as I was saying, 
the man who was expected to care for your 
dog hadn’t done so, and he’s got sort of 


280 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


worried lately and wanted to get him back/* 

“He can’t have him,” Ted defended 
stoutly. 

“No, that’s right; he can’t. And I told 
him so. He knows now that the dog is in 
good hands, and that I’ll answer any ques¬ 
tions the Ellors family care to ask about 
him.” 

Ted’s face was now beaming with joy. 
He had been so worried about Nero that he 
simply wouldn’t let the animal out of his 
protective sight for days past. 

“And Mr. Sanders,” he insisted, “night 
before last Nero saved us from a flood. A 
water pipe broke right over there and Nero 
—made us all get up—” 

“Night before last!” exclaimed the 
professor. 

“Yes; and Nancy turned off the 
water—” 

“That was the night I had my precious 
little air-meter right under this chimney,” 
said Mr. Sanders very slowly, “and if water 


THE STORY TOLD 


281 


had trickled through the floor, down onto 
that, it would have been ruined.’’ 

‘‘Then, just as Ted says,” Nancy spoke, 
“Nero really did save it, for there was a 
regular flood around this hearth.” 

“You must have seen me leaving the 
grounds that afternoon,” Mr. Sanders ad¬ 
mitted. “I was sure you did, but I wasn’t 
ready to tell my story—just then. But Ted, 
I’ll have to get you a fine collar for Nero—” 

The girls were begging Nancy to make an 
announcement. 

“ Go on, ” urged Ruth. 1i They ’re all talk¬ 
ing together and no one will listen unless 
you get up on the step.” 

With this and considerable more urging, 
Nancy finally mounted the step. She smiled 
shyly at her mother as she passed along, for 
Mrs. Brandon, like the other “principals,” 
was having a busy time of it. 

“I just want to say,” Nancy began with a 
little quaver in her voice, “that we’ve pre¬ 
pared some little cakes and punch as samples 


282 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


of our cooking class work, and we’ll be glad 
to have you all stay and try them;” 

There was real applause at this, and men¬ 
tioning the cooking class—was a signal for 
another outburst of comment from the 
ladies. They all believed in girls doing 
something during summer, and they did not 
believe in girls “ wasting” an entire 
vacation. 

“I think we ought to give a cheer for the 
girls,” Mr. Sanders proposed. “They have 
kept things going pretty lively around here 
this summer, just lively enough to save me 
from having been discovered.” 

“And I’d like to say a word,” ventured 
timid Miss Manners. But the girls would 
not permit her to do so, Nancy, especially 
being fearful that the little lady’s grat¬ 
itude, for the domestic science class and for 
Mrs. Brandon’s hospitality might become 
embarrassing. 

“Any how,” said Buster to Ted, “we can 
have our dog.” 


THE STORY TOLD 


283 


“ And a dandy new collar,” appended Ted. 

Nancy was waiting a chance to finish her 
announcements, and in a little lull she again 
called out: 

“Mr. Sanders and Miss Sanders are en¬ 
tertaining tomorrow evening at the Water¬ 
fall House. Every body is invited! And 
you will be treated there to some real sam¬ 
ples of our cakes!” 

“Now I call that lov-el-lee,” declared 
Miss Townsend, shaking her new hat at 
every syllable. “And these cakes,” (the 
girls were passing them) “are de-lic-ious.” 

Nancy was very happy. She tugged at 
her mother’s arm and cuddled her head 
against the loving shoulder, just as she had 
always done in her great moments. 

“Isn’t it lov-ell-lee, Mums,” she 
whispered. 

“A complete—success!” murmured the 
mother. 

And the next morning half, if not all, of 
Long Leigh trooped up the hill to inspect 


284 NANCY BRANDON: ENTHUSIAST 


the wonderfully outfitted and “infitted” 
cistern, that had so long escaped notice, on 
the grounds of the old, stone house. 

“I was going to look down that cistern 
first chance I got,” Nancy confessed. 
“But being successful is such a busy— 
business,” she joked, “that I think it will he 
a delightful change to begin a real vacation 
with mother tomorrow.” 

THE END 









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